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Zbc Xake lEnalieb Claeeice 

THE 

[R ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 



THE SPECTATOR 



EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 



HERBERT VAUGHAN ABBOTT 

INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 



CHICAGO 

SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

1905 






Copyright 1898 
By SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 



KOBT. O. LAW CO., PRINTERS AMD BI.VDBBS, CHICAGO 



PREFACE 

There is perhaps no humor in literature more likely 
appeal to a girl of sensitive tastes than the delicate 
rokes of Addison; there is certainly no period in 
nglish life so likely to appeal to a boy of masculine 
Istes as the brilliant and intensely human age of Queen 
nne. The humor of Addison must be left to disclose 
[self; it is never improved by the officiousness of an 
Hitor. Much can be done, however, to illustrate and 
;.ake graphic the age for which and in which Steele and 
ddison wrote. This is the especial purpose of this 
)lume. In the Introduction, I have not restricted 
myself to such a brief account of Queen Anne's time as 
jboy or a girl might read off-hand at a sitting. On the 
btrary, I have attempted to gather historical material 
bm which the teacher may draw as occasion calls 
the class-room. The teacher is urged, however, 
't to stop here; the pupils need to be set tasks of 
(earch for themselves. With this in view, he should, 
I possible, secure for them access to a complete copy of 



6 PREFACb: 

the Spectator^ or, if that be out of the question, to thii 
Spectator in London (published by Seeley & Co. o; 
London). For the best work, he needs on the schoo 
shelves or in the town library, Sydney's two vohimes oi 
England and the English in the Eightee7ith Century, 
Macaiilay's famous third chapter in his History at 
England will also be useful. For biographical material 
Thackeray's English Humorists^ Courthorpe's Addisoii 
in the "English Men of Letters" Series and Dobson^J 
Steele in the '* English AVorthies" Series, will furnish all 
that is needed. I 

For text I have followed mainly that of Mr. A^ 
Gregory Smith in his new edition of the Spectator, s 
far as it has been published, modernizing, however, tH 
capitalization and the spelling of the original. Into th 
last paragraph of No. 383, I have introduced a clevci 
emendation, borrowed from Mr. D. 0. S. Lowell, ani 
have occasionally for similar reasons omitted bri( 
phrases in other portions of the essays. With thes 
exceptions, this volume will be found, I hope, a faithfi 
transcript of the original. Indeed, the last chapt( 
aims to be an exact copy of the text, that the pupil ma 
see for himself what a page looked like two centuri( 
ago. 

A glossary at the back of the volume furnishes exph 
nations of allusions not sufficiently prepared for by th 



PREFACE 7 

introduction, and calls attention to idioms peculiar to 
he authors or their age. It also contains an index of 
he material given in the Introduction. In the text, 
rords which the pupil would not naturally look up are 
ndicated by a star. 

Herbert Vaughai^ Abbott. 
Cambridge, August, 1898. 



t^^a^ 



/W.^^ 



sLidyi^^'^'^iP' 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

EFACE 5 

FRODUCTION 

1. The Spectator 13 

2. The Streets 13 

3. Night in London 15 

; 4. The Beau 16 

/■f. The Woman of Fashion 16 

6* A Fashionable Library . . . . . .17 

li^l. A Fashionable Garden 19 

' 8. Fashionable Amusements. The Theatre . . 19 

i^." The. Pit 31 

! 10,. Differences of Opinion 23 

|/d^'TheCoffee-House 33 

^^ Special Coffee-Houses 34 

^3. The City 26 

14. The Landed Interest 37 

15. -Travel into the Country 37 

ij5. The Country Gentleman 38 

i/f7. Hunting Fashions 39 

Wy^he Country Squire 30 

^■^^ The Church 31 

'^0. The Whigs and the Tories 33 

,2V The War 34 

h2. Pamphleteers 35 

•2J, Journalists 36 

ki. The Spectator Again 37 

^5. Joseph Addison 38 



10 



CONTENTS 



26. Addison at the Coffee-House 

27. Prudent Mr. Addison . 

28. His Kindly Spirit . 

29. Dick Steele . 

30. Tlie Details of his Life . 

31. His Frankness of Temper 

32. His Simplicity of Feeling 

33. Dobson on Steele . 

34. Budgell . . • • 
'35. A Picture of the Age . 



ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 



CHAPTER 

I. The Spectator . . . , 
n. The Club 

III. Sir Roger on Fashion and Virtue 

IV. The Club Again 
V. A Lady's Library 

VI. CovERLEY Hall 
VIL The Coverley Household . 
VIII. Will Wimble .... 
IX. The Family Portraits . 
X. The Coverley Ghost 
XI. Sunday with Sir Roger 
XII. Sir Roger in Love 

XIII. The Coverley Economy 

XIV. Sir Roger and the Hunt 
XV. The Hunting Field 

XVI. Moll White .... 

XVII. The Wooing 

XVIII. The Polite World . 
XIX. The Coverley Poultry 
XX. Sir Roger at the Assizes 



Addison 

Steele 

Steele 

Addison 

Addison 

Addison 

Steele 

Addison 

Steele 

Addison 

Addison 



Steele 11 



Steele 
Addison 
Budgell 
Addison 

Steele 
Addison t 
Addison 1 
Addison 1 



CONTENTS 



11 



lAPTER 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

j:xvii. 

XVIII. 
XXIX. 
XXX. 
XXXI. 
CXXII. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 



Florio and Leonilla . 

Party Feeling . 

Whigs and Tories 

Sir Roger and the Gypsies 

A Summons to London . 

The Coach to London 

Sir Andrew on Trade . 

Sir Roger in London 

A Selection from a Spectator 

In Westminster Abbey . 

Sir Roger at the Play 

Will Honeycomb 

Sir Roger at Spring Garden 

The Death of Sir Roger 

hronology 

LossARY OF Words and Phrases 

I 



PAGE 

Addison 161 

Addison 169 

Addison 175 

Addison 180 

Addison 185 

Steele 189 

Steele 194 

Addison 200 

Addison 206 

Addison 208 

Addison 213 

Budgell 218 

Addison 223 

Addison 228 

233 

. 235 



INTRODUCTION 

The Spec. Eacli chapter in the adventures of Sir Roger 
tator. ^Q Coverley which appears in this volume 

riginally appeared as an issue o f a London daily jou ijial 
the eighteenth _c£ BtmT, c^edJhQ..^p£cUitor. It was 
iiblished i n a single sheet of fool scap, printed in double 
Dlumns, on both sides, and accompanied by a few 
mouncements of booksellers and theatre managers, 
ad the advertisements of private subscribers. It re- 
orted no news ; it aimed never t o dis<^iisa pnlitjcs ; it 
as in reality q^ d^^'^y ^^^^j r.^ aVpfnlij to be read by 
ten of fashion^over their chocola^te and women of 
ishion over their tea. To understand the novel pur- 
oses of this journal and the extraordinary influence it 
as exerted one needs to know something of these men 
ad women, who they were, how they lived, what they 
lought. 
2. The The London in which they lived — for 

streets. i}^qj ^q^q most of them Londoners — 

ae might walk the length of in but little over an 
our, and across in less than half that time. To do 
, however, he would often have to dodge into the street 
nong gilded hackney coaches and fashionable sedan 
lairs, or else elbow his way brusquely and at risk of 



14 INTRODUCTION 

an affray, among porters bent under their loads of 
merchandise, shopmen stationed at their doors, appren- 
tices, hawkers, sneak thieves, sauntering fops and big 
town bullies. The streets were narrow. There were 
no street numbers, and shopkeepers distinguished their 
shops by elaborate signs — blue boars, black swans, red} 
lions and hogs in ai'mor — which swung on creaking:' 
hinges over the j^assers-by. The sidewalks were narrow 
and divided from the streets by open gutters — ^kennels 
they called them then — and by an awkward arrange- - 
ment of posts and chains. To walk near these kennels-' 
in rainy weather was to be di^enched from the gutter J 
spouts which, while they hung out a good distance] 
toward the gutters, never sent their stream quite clear ij 
of the sidewalk. Rain or shine, men could always pick 
a quarrel on the privilege of keeping to the wall. One| 
of the most vivid pictures we have of London streets isl 
due to these quarrels regarding the wall. It is from aJj 
satirist of the time and runs as follows *, 

You'll sometimes meet a fop, of nicest tread, d 

Whose mantling peruke veils his empty head, 

At ev'ry step he dreads the wall to lose, I 

And risks, to save a coach, his red-heel' d shoes, " 

Him like the miller pass with caution by | 

Lest from his shoulders clouds of powder fly, 

But when the bully with assuming pace 

Cocks his broad hat, edg'd round with tarnish'd lace. 

Yield not the way ; defy his strutting pride. 

And thrust him to the muddy kennel's side. 

He never turns again, nor dares oppose 

But mutters coward curses as he goes. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

•. Night At niglit, the tin vessels tliat served for 
London. lamps diffiisecl so little light, that every 
n with an honest errand engaged a torch-bearer to 
at him on his way. As for protection, every man 
1 to trust to his own rapier. "Apparelled in thick, 
ivy gi'eat-coats, the watchmen i>erambnlated the 
ets, crying the hour after the chimes, taking precau- 
ns for the prevention of fire, proclaiming tidings of 
il or fair weather and awakening at daybreak all those 
o intended setting out on a journey."^ Neither 
tchman nor constable, however, had enough wit to 
ve an honest man in time of danger. The gi'eatest 
at night came not from ordinary criminals, 
)ugh these were common enough, but from bands 
ai'istocratic young rowdies, who seized peaceable 
n and women on the streets, tattooed or slashed their 
es, rolled reputable women round in barrels, or, 
itating the fox hunt, chased some citizen about town 
finally they had him at their mercy. Then they 
pt him dancing with pricks of their swords. Of 
)se ruffians, the most notorious were the MohiKiks. 
was probably of these that Dr. Johnson was thinking 
iCn he wrote the lines : 

Some fiery fop with new commission vain, 
Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man- 
Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast, 
Provokes a broil and stabs you for a jest. 

Sydney: England and the English in the Eighteenth 

'itury. 



16 INTRODUCTION 

The town was full of young men who h( 

nothing to occupy them but brawls, drinl 

JDg hmij ^j^_nnr(1-p]n.yiny^ anrl finp. grpgs^ and of these D 

small proportion spent all their serious attention o 
dress. The fashionable fop or beau enveloped his hea 
in a well -powdered wig, which needed constant attentioi 
and his neck and wi'ists in lace ruffles. His coat I 
threw open to display his costly shirt. He encased li 
legs in tight-fitting knickerbockers, and his feet ; 
high-heeled shoes with silver buckles. For the str& 
he added to this costume a cocked hat, a diamond-hilt( 
sword, a cane, which hung by a loop from his coat, ai 
not infrequently, if the weather were cold, a muff. 
5. The "^^^ woman of fashion was a spirit^ 

Woman of coquettc. "There is scar CO any cmotiou 
Fashion. the mind," says one of the writers in tl 
Spectator^ "which does not produce a suitable agitati(i 
in the fan; in so much, that, if I only see the fan oi\ 
disciplined lady, I know very well whether she laugh 
frowns or blushes. I have seen a fan so very angr; 
that it would have been dangerous for the absent lo^ 
who provoked it to have come within the wind of 
and at other times so very languishing, that I have be' 
glad for the lady's sake the lover was at a sufficie- 
distance from it." Her coquetry, however, though 
charmed the men of her own circle, would be altogetl 
too pretentious to please taste to-day. She was 
affected creature. On pleasant days she would throT^; 
scarlet cloak over her shoulders, and with her lap-dog; 
her monkey under her arm, mince down the street 



INTRODUCTION 17 

e the fashions . She had Jnst given up her towering 
3ad-dress*/ her petticoats, says the Spectator^ "were 
own into an enormous concave," and her feet were 
'opped up on high-lieele d sho es. One device she had 
•r giving^ dignity to her appearance ; she powdered her 
lir and face, and set off her ^c omplexion by little pie ces 
I black silk or velvet, called "^patchjgs." Skilful hands 
ade these devices charming, but the hands of the 
dinary woman scattered the powder clumsily and 
ultiplied the patches till they became absurd. On 
)pressing days, the great lady stayed at home and 
^irsed her one cherished ailment, for every fashionable 
bman chose to consider herself "^jbjp^^- ^^ ^^^ ^1iiP°, 
as she called them, the "vapors." On these occa- 
)ns she was moody, irritable, and when crossed, might, 
she were only fashionable enough, become hysterical. 
A Fashion- SJT Eogcr dc Coverley 's ^ acquaintance 
le Library, amou^ the ladics wa s largely confined to 
ose who .aspired to lea rning. It is worth one's while 
, go over in detail tke library which one of these ladies^ 

Within my own memory I have known it rise and fall 
bve thirty degrees. About ten years ago, it shot up to 
Very great height, insomuch that the female part of our 
^cies were much taller than the men. ... At present 
3 whole sex is in a manner dwarfed and shrunk into a race 
beauties that seems almost another species. I remember 
reral ladies, who were once very near seven foot high, 
it at present want some inches of five ; how they came to 

thus curtailed I cannot learn. — The Spectator, June 22^ 
U. 

Leonora. See pages 73-78 in this voluma 



18 INTRODUCTION i 

I 

is described as haying. Her shelves contained four 
French romances, Cassandra^ Cleopatra^ AstrcBa and 
Clelia. These stories strung out anywhere from three to 
ten Yolumes in length, and were full of sentimental 
shepherds, romantic knights, flowery meads and purling 
streams. In Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia^ first publishe(3 
by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, she had anothet 
story of the same general sort, though it was far more 
genuine in feeling. Among those volumes of hers whicl] 
no lady's library must be without were the famous Elzevil 
editions of Latin, French and German classics, Dry^ 
den's Juvencd^ Ogilby's Virgil^ which, though \ 
wretched translation, was beautifully illustrated, and 
Baker 's Chronicle^ a popular jumble of the old Engiisl 
histories and a favorite volume of the lady's friend, Sii 
Roger, Her religious books had all at one time o: 
another been in the- fashion. There was Dick Steele' - 
Cliristian Hero; the author was too gallant not to bi 
popular ; there was Sherlock on Death; he was Dean o 
the great London Cathedral, St. Paul's; there wa^ 
Sacheverell's speech; he was the idol of all the ladies oi 
the Tory pai'ty. Ever since he ha^ undergone trial foj 
making scurrilous attacks on the Whigs, these ladieti 
had chosen to consider him a martyr. Sir Williarl 
Temple, whose works were on her shelves, was apolishef 
but conventional essayist; Locke and Newton wer 
profound and abstruse writers on scientific and ph: 
losophic topics far above her capacity; and th 
Ladies'* Calling was a sort of sequel to the WtoU But 
of 3Ian, a treatise in morals Avhich had run throng 



'1 



INTRODUCTION 19 

ny editions. Side by side with these pious volumes 

od "Handsome Fielding's" trial for bigamy, Thomas 

iUrfey's gross and dissolute songs and plays, and the 

ko Atla?itis, a collection of coarse and malicious 

[ndals.^ 

I Fashion- It was uo uucommou thing in the early 

p Garden. pg^j.^ Qf Jjift^jRi^rM^pTitb Pfinfnry fpr a, 

Inted coqu ette or a roguish ol d beau to pr of ess a love 
I Kature and simj)le out-door life. No sooner, how- 
ir, did they establish a country seat out of London 
m they began to make it as artificial as them- 
res. They laid out the paths in geometrical figures, 
y dug out artificial grottoes, and lined them with 
tils and bits of looking-glass that should glitter 
ier the rays of artificial light ; they even pruned the 
Bs into cones, pyramids, globes or fantastic shapes of 
n and animals. 

Fashiona- Dauciug was the only_active exercise in 
Lts^ThJ which the woman of fashio n ever thou ght 



fheatre. of jfldulging . She went through the mys- 
ies of the masked ball, the complicated steps of the 
iuet or the country-dance (or, as we should say, 
lare dance), bet with men at th e gfymiiig-inhlft^ saw 
^1, practically the inventorjvf ^Piirip.h fl.Tid Jiir ly, 
libit his puppet-show in Covent Garden, or vis- 
l the opera, which was just then doubly popular be- 
ise o f its novelty in London and its pretentious stage- 
rs the author dared not speak of the victims of her slander 
uheir real names, she used feigned ones. To enjoy the full 
ight of the book, therefore, Leonora got a key. 



30 INTRODUCTION 

settings.* The theatre, however, was still the place whei? 
the stranger would turn for the fashionable display o 
Jthe city:^ Here, at six jo^clock^ the w orld gathe red to rr 
and to be seen, to hear a nd to be heard. The uppe 
galleryTeld the noisy artizans, mechanics, body-servant 
and apprentices of the town. *'It is observed," say 
the Sj^ectator^ in one of its satires, "there has been 
certain person in the upper gallery of the play-house 
who, when he is pleased with anything that is acte< 
upon the stage, expresses his approbation by a loa 
knock upon the benches or the wainscot, which may t' 
heard over the whole theatre. This person is commonlii 
known by the name of the * trunk-maker in the uppe' 
gallery.' Whether it be that the blow he gives q 
these occasions resembles that which is often heai'd \ 
the shops of such artizans, or that he was supposed \ 
have been a real trunk-maker who, after the finishing < 
his day's work, used to unbend his mind at these publ; 
diversions with his hammer in his hand, I cannn 
certainly tell. There are some I know who have beei 
foolish enough to imagine it is a spirit which haunts tli 
upper gallery and from time to time makes these stran^ 
noises; and the rather because he is observed to 1 
louder than ordinary every "time the ghost of Hamll 
appears. Others have reported that it is a dumb nui 
who has chosen this way of uttering himself when he 
transported with anything he sees or hears. Others wi 



^ For satire on opera and puppet show, see the SpectaU ( 
Nos. 5, 13, 14, 18, 22, 29, and 31. 



INTRODUCTION 21 

ke it to be tlie play-house thunderer that exerts him- 
f after this manner in the upper gallery when he has 
thing to do upon the roof. But having made it my 
siness to get the best information I could in a matter 
;this moment, I find that the trunk-maker, as he is 
iimonly called, is a large black^ man, whom nobody 
ows. ^ He generally leans forward on a huge oaken 
int^ with great attention to everything that passes on 
stage. He is never seen to smile; but upon hearing 
thing that pleases him, he takes up his staff with 
h hands, and lays it upon the next piece of timber 
it stands in the way with exceeding vehemence, 
-er which, he composes himself in his former posture, 
such time as something new sets him at work." 
The Pit. The lower gallery held jhe_ plain and _salK-^ 

stantial c i t ize ns, an d the pit the barristers, 
students_and yo ung merchaj its-i^l-iiaia^tt-fch^Vy- ._ 
^^. Well toward the front were the self-appointed 
'ics, l ike the Templ ar,^ who were versed in plays, and 
3se judgment oft'^n determined the fate of a new 
ture. Fashionable lords an^dladies, more conscious of 
ir brilliant costumes than of the performance, hired 
irs from the pla^firg^and^at on the.£tage. Not to be 
done in splendor, the players, whatever the perform- 
8, dressedanjhejatest^iad^ Cato would wear a 

, and an ancient British maiden a modern head-dress. 
te in the audience, afraid they we re not getting atten- 

)ark complexioned. 

Cudgel. 

>ee pages 56-57 in this volume. 



22 INTRODUCTION ^ 

tion enough by their ogling and finery, picked quarre 
and drew their swords. Sydney, in his England ai 
the English in the Eighteenth Century, describes oi 
such aifray. **One evening, in 1720, while the eel 
brated actress, Mrs. Oldfield, was captivating anaudiem 
with her impersonation of the Scornful Lady, Be? 
Robert Fielding . . . insulted a barrister nam( 
Fulwood by pushing rudely against him. Fulwo( 
loudly expostulating, the beau clapped his hand up( 
his sword. Fulwood drew his, and ran it into the boC 
of his antagonist, who walked off exhibiting his bleedii 
wound to the audience in order to excite the pity of tJ 
fair sex. Greatly to his chagrin, the ladies laugh 
loudly at his misfortune.'* 
10. Differ- "^^^ audieucc did not hesitate to ma; 
ences of their opinions of the performance know 
Opinion. ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ important issues were apt I 
break up into distinct factions. One issue was polit ic 
The popularity of this playwright, like that of the auti: 
and the clergyman, depended not n litt^^ ^^ wb*^^^^^ ii 
was a Whig or Tory. The other issue was one o f art ajl 
morais7"~'' CTmm^ s written in the fashion which m 
prevailed before the days of the Spectator were sc{J)i 
dalously immo ral. A new school of playwrigb 
among them the authors of that journal, was J| 
coming into vogue. It was their purpose to cj^ar ' 
s^^ge_j)i4 mmoralit ^. Not all men of leisure were bea 
Many of them gave their time freely to the serious bi| 
ness of the state, to the encouragement of art, phi'jgr 
ophy, science and letters, or with more modest a 






INTRODUCTION 23 

iised the tone of the society they were in by conducting 
lemselves as honest English gentlemen. These men 
sre ready to welcome clean and honest work. Unfor- 
Inately, the new school was not satisfied with trying to 
^ pure in morals ; it was stiff and pedantic, and wrote, 
5)t naturally, but according to arbitrary rules. The 
\istrest Mother,^ which Sir Eoger de Coverley is made 
: puff, was a play of the new school. The editors of 
Je Spectator were determined to make the author 
ibpular; his enemies coined from his name, Ambrose 
^lillips, the epithet namhy-jmmhy. 
The cof- * ' If you would kuow our manner of living, " 
e-House. writes a man of the period, " 'tis thus? 
e rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's 
ees find entertainment at them till eleven, or, as in 
Hand, go to tea-tables ; about twelve the beau monde 
gembles in coffee or chocolate houses. If it be fine, 
take a turn in the Park till two, when we go to 
nner." It was to these coffee or chocolate houses 
at a stranger would turn if he wished to find out 
aat the men of LqndpiL-JKfira-- interested in and 
loughtful about. They were the places of rendezvous 
the wits, the gallants, the politician s, the poets, 

^See pages 213-217, in this volume. When the play 
^ns, Andromache, the widow of Hector, is a captive of the 
eeks. To save her son Astyanax from death, she finds she 
ast consent to marry her -captor Pyrrhus. Immediately 
ier the ceremony, Pyrrhus is slain at the instigation of 
^rmione, to whom he had long been betrothed. The assassin 
i lover of Hermione, by name Orestes. 

I 



24 INTEODUCTION I 

i 

the merchants, the essayists of the age. The highway. 
man that, well-masked, had rohbed you the night before 
as you rode into London might brush against you as you 
laid your penny of admission down at the bar. The 
great Dr. Swift, the satirist of the town, might be stalk, 
ing up and down, grim and silent, between the tables.- 
Many a poor scribbler for the booksellers, who slept all 
night in a garret, picked out some coffee-house as hip 
regular place of address, and made all his appointments 
and received his few letters there. It was the place tc 
see the latest fashion of the fop, to hear the brilliani 
co nversat ion of men of letters, and to learn the Igbtgs^ 
news of the^E nglish armies agaiiist tbej^nch . "I firs 
of all called in at St. James's," says one of the writern 
of the Spectator, "where I found the whole outwarc 
room in a buzz of politics. The speculations were bu 
very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as yor 
advanced to the upper end of the room, and were s 
very much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat i], 
the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot 
that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy dispose 
of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less tha^ 
a quarter of an hour." t 

Of the two thousand coffee-houses in Lot; 

1?J. Special -, r.. T^ T /^ 1 

Coffee- don at this time, the Sn' Roger de Coverlet 

Houses. paperg^^fer to seven. The oldest coffe(| 
house in town was'the Grecian, the resort of the Leajm^i 
Club. At Wil^s, situaled ' oVer a retail shop nej 
Covent Garden and the theatres, th^jwits andJhe_poe 
hadjiongre gated for many^ ars. The great poet Drydc, 



INTRODUCTION 25 

ad gathered all his disciples there; but one of the 
litors of the Spectator, Joseph Addison, had set up a 
9W literary circle at Button^ T^nd AYill's was losing 
ime of its old reputation. It was card-playing^j^ot 
it, which was now its chief attraction. Chilcrs^ in St. 
aul's churchyard, was frequented by ecclesiastics and 
ther professional men, Jonatha^Vl^y stockjobbers, 
'qui]2ja^g''Ey lawyers and law students, the coffee -li(Tiise 
S. the Tilt Yard, by "military and mock-military fellows 
ho manfully pulled the noses of quiet citizens who wore 
ot swords/^ the Chocolate House, also known as the 
ocoa fe^e^ by the Tor ies, and St. JamSsloy the Whigs, 
here is a tale of this last coffee-house worth quoting 
'ecause it concerns the chief editor of the Spectator^ Sir 
ichard Steele. "Lord Forbes," says the narrator, 
happened to be in company with . . . two mili- 
iry gentlemen ... in St. James's Coffee-House, 
^hen two or three well-dressed men, all unknown to his 
!)rdship or to his company, came into the room, and in 
I public, outrageous manner abused Captain Steele as 
fie author of the Tatler} One of them, with great 
udacity and vehemence, swore that he would cut Steele's 
hroat or teach him better manners. *In this country,' 
^id Lord Forbes, *you will find it easier to cut a purse 
lian to cut a throat.' His brother officers joined with 
lis lordship, and turned the cut-throats out with every 
hark of disgrace.'"' 

3 1 1 

I *A tri- weekly journal which preceded the Spectator. 

'''For further descriptions of the Coffee-House, see the 
Spectator, Nos. 46, 49, 148, 197, 403. 



36 INTRODUCTION 

By this time the thoughtful reader will 

13. The City. ,. , -. , ii ,-, 

begin to wonder where all the money came 
from to support the life of London. It came from great 
landed estates in the country on the one hand, and fromi 
a rapidly growing commerce on the other. ''When I 
have been upon the 'Change,'^ " says the Spectator, in 
one of its issues, *'I have often fancied one of our old* 
kings standing in person where he is represented in. 
effigy and looking down upon the wealthy concourse ofi 
people -with which that place is every day filled. In this! 
case how would he be surprised to hear all the languages' 
of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former 
dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his? 
time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron,i 
negotiating like princes for greater sums of money than 
were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury."' 
The community centering about this enormous mine of» 
wealth was called in distinction from the court and the 
aristocracy the "city," and its members were knowni 
as "citizens." In this region were gathered the 
great merchants of the realm. Every day they in- 
creased in power; every day they grew prouder o| 
their increasing wealth. Their wealth, however, could 
not save them from the witticisms of the clever fellows 
about town. Too often, indeed, the witticisms were; 
well deserved. The average merchant was apt to be! 
pompous and self-important, and the very fact that he 
could not get admittance to a lord's levees or a lady's 

^ Exchange. | 



INTRODUCTION 27 

jouts^ only made him strut a little more vain -gloriously. 
Chere were few merchants as dignified as Sir Andrew 
^reeport,^ and few clever writers willing to treat him 
nth. as much respect as the editors of the Spectator 
Ihow to that worthy gentleman. 

: It was not from the "city," however, that 

La^ided In- mcu of f ashiou drew their wealth . It came 
terest. ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ p^rfc from the rents of landed 

States in the country. This land had descended to 
Ihem from their fathers, and, however great the debts 
SN^hich they slipped off their shoulders when they too 
went to their graves, this land would for the most part 
rlescend to their eldest sons, who could neither dis- 
pose of it nor bequeath it elsewhere. Creditors might 
make up their losses as best they could, and younger sons, 
It least those who could not live on the generosity of 
bheir elder brothers, were left to their own resources. 
jTo these younger sons, only three kinds of employment 
feeemed honorable,— statecraft, fighting in her Majesty's 
army or navy, and the Church; or, if the estates of the 
•father had been comparatively small, they might without 
iiisgrace try law or medicine. Meanwhile, their elder 
brothers kept up the honor of the family name. 

Manv landlords, however, seldom if ever 

15. Travel -^ » \. -, mi i.i • 

into the saw the city of London. To know their 

Country. manner of life, one must travel into the 

icountry districts ; and journeying was slow and danger - 

1 The term used for fashionable assemblies in the eighteenth 
century. 

2 See page 58, in this volume. 



28 INTRODUCTION 

ous. Every highway of importance was marked by gib- 
bets, and from many a gibbet hnng the corpse of a high- 
wayman. The coaches were without springs, and the i 
roads were almost intolerable. ''On the best lines of 
communication," says one writer, "ruts were so deep and 
obstructions so formidable that it was only in fine weather 
that the whole breadth of the road became available. Sel- 
dom could two vehicles pass each other unless one of them 
stopped." The inns along the route were identified to 
a passer-by by their gi'otesque signs, but to the old 
stager they must have stood out even more distinctly for 
the oddities of the host or hostess. Few of these 
worthies probably had ever stepped out of their own 
county. Many of them probably had never been a half- 
day's ride from home. A journey made from county to 
county was like an ocean voyage thirty years ago. The 
passengers quickly got acquainted. And wherever they 
stopped the men always paid for the women's refresh- 
ments as well as their own. 

16 The ^^ ^^ ^^^y ^^^^^ some such journey as this 
Country that ouc camc into the petty territories of 
Gentleman. ^^^ g^^^H couutry gentleman, where, the 
year round, he lived among his tenants. His house" 
was usually either of plaster striped with timber, or else ■ 
of red brick with long bow -windows. Unpleasantly close 
to his house was his stable, and usually the whole space 
between was little better than a stable-yard. The 
owner himself was generally a roystering fellow who 
devoted his attention to hunting, cock-fighting, smok- 
ing, drinking and lording it over his neighbors « He 



INTRODUCTION 29 

might follow the fox or the hare wherever it went, 
though he trampled down the standing grain on his 
tenants' or his neighbors' estates. If his income were 
of a certain figure, he might confiscate to his own use 
the guns, nets and traps which he found in the pos- 
session of the man of more ordinary means. ^ In his 
pleasures, the law gave him the privileges of a petty 
despot. 

17. Hunting In the half cuntury before the Spectator 
Fashions. ^^g published, travel to and from London 
had grown a little more common. In that same period, 
the country squires had fallen into the habit of meeting 
joccasionally at some central bowling-green to bowl, dine, 
jdance, or discuss the news of the county. Still, the 
jordinary squire seldom if ever saw London ; and he cared 
less for his neighbors than he did for his hounds, his 
horses, his pipe and his beer. In fashions, he always 
lagged behind the age. Like his father, he selected his 
hounds not so much for their speed as for the musical 
effect of their voices when they blended in the chase. 
His hunting too was primitive. Much of the land was 
still so overrun with bogs and ditches that the master of 
the pack had to follow the dogs on foot, and by the long 
pole he balanced in his hand vault the spots which the 
tnen on horseback had carefully to skirt. 

^ This privilege was given him by the game act. A man had 
bo have forty pounds a year in rents or a handsomer sum in 
3ther forms of property before he was allowed to hunt. A' 
aaan with a hundred pounds a year in rents had the privilege 
3f confiscation. 



30 INTRODUCTION 

18 The ^^^ administration of mucli of the county 

Country law was left in the hands of the country 

Squire. gentlemen. The humblest office open to 

them was that of justice of the peace, which brought with 
it the honorary title of ' ' Squire. ' ' In this capacity, they 
gave marriage certificates, bound disorderly persons ovei 
to keep the peace, and in criminal courts, meeting 
quarterly and known as quarter -sessions, admin isterec 
the highway, game and poor laws. Twice a year the 
judges of the superior courts held court sessions — knownl 
as assizes — in the various counties of England, and '1 
summoned such squires as were ''eminent for knowledge i 
and prudence'' to sit with them. This body of 
"eminent" squires was known as the quorum. In addi- 
tion to receiving such honors, the landed gentleman 
might be elected "Sheriff of the County," an office 
which gave him the right to appear on state occasions in i] 
court dress; or, if he were a knight, he might be J 
elected to Parliament as "knight (or member) of the; 
shire. " Many a squire would have found it impossible 
to administer even the simple office of justice of the I 
peace had it not been for the clever coaching of his ' 
clerk. In almost every case his pretensions to learning 
were very slight. He had had perhaps a year or so 
at the University, but even there he had devoted him- 
self more to roystering than to learning, and when he 
had returned to his estates he was usually quite willing 
to settle back into his old ignorance. His knowledge 
of law was drilled into him by his clerk ; as for a knowl- 
edge of literature, he was content to pick up from somei 



INTRODUCTION 31 

jk popular in the country regions a few proverbial 
oressions, with which he flavored his conversation on 

occasions.^ 

19. The Besides its rents to the landlords, every 
Church. farm had to pay one-tenth of its yearly 
)duce to the support of the Church. This Church was 
^reat political institutioUo Membership in it, like the 
h to support the Constitution, was a sign of patriot- 
1, not of religious devotion. Parliament not only 
tied what the rites of the Church should be, but 
used political office to any one who had not taken the 
nmunion according to those rites. The great prizes 

the Church occasionally went to men of brilliant 
ents; quite as often, perhaps, to men who had family 
luence and a little cleverness of their own to back 

'But that Sir Roger may appear in this, as in other 
pects, above the average of his order, there is in Coverley 
11 a library rich in 'divinity and MS. household receipts.' 
Roger, too, had dra.wn many observations together out of 

reading in Baker's Chronicle and other authors 'who 
idujB lie in his hall window' ; and, however limited his own 
ssic lore, it is certain that both in love and friendship he 
played strong literary sympathies. The perverse widow, 
ose cruelty darkened his whole existence, was a 'reading 
y,' a 'desperate scholar,' and in argument 'as learned as 
( best philosopher in Europe, ' one who, when in the country, 
es not run into dairies, but reads upon the nature of plants. ' 
Besides the Spectator — to whom he eventually 
[ueathed his books — he indulged a platonic admiration for 
)nora, a widow, formerly a celebrated woman, and still a 
y lovely woman, who turned all the passion of her sex into 
)ve of books and retirement." — W. H. Wills. 



32 INTRODUCTION 

them; they seldom fell to men of religious earnestness 
Many of the clergy spent their time enjoying the pleas 
ures of London, and seldom saw the steeples of theij 
own parish churches. Even of those who lived in thei] 
parishes, a large number gave most of their time ti 
farming, hunting, drinking and gambling. "I founds 
parson di'unk," writes Dean Swift, in one of his letters, 
"fighting with a seaman, and Patrick and I were st 
wise as to part them, but the seaman followed him U 
Chelsea, cursing at him, and the parson slipped into ;; 
house, and so I know no more. It mortified me to se<i 
a man in my coat^ so overtaken. ' ' The right of appoint! 
ing a clergyman to any particular church belonget 
usually to some landed proprietor, who exercised it t1 
repay a political favor, to push the fortunes of his owj 
relations, or to satisfy his own whims. From the duke t' 
the squire, every landed proprietor had in his employ I 
domestic chaplain. On small country estates, this poci 
fellow was treated as a sort of man of all work. "I 
addition to digging for an hour or two daily in tti 
garden or the orchard," says a historian of the perioci 
he "was required to bring the hope of the family par 
the wearisome bitterness of his learning, to check th 
rent-book and the miller's score, to shoe the horses, i 
say grace at meals, and to withdraw as soon as the cheefi 
and tarts made their appearance on the table." 
always keep a chaplain," wi'ote one bitter satirist, 
drink my foul wine for me." 

^ In the garb or livery of my profession. 



INTRODUCTION 33 

20. The ^^^ tlirougli the eighteenth century, 
Whigs and there were two great political parties in 
the Tories. England, the Tories and the Whigs. The 
L^ory wished all the powers of gover^TTrifinf. in ha in the 
aT-irifl nf flip lnnr^LiJ-j:ftx>.i]jpc.^ whirliJinjUnh mt od their 

wealth anrl their Tf^pntnf.imi frn]y ) p^ , vamniPi p act The 

hree things dear to a Tory's heart were old_times, old 
|milies,^and grea^^^states. The AYhig, on the other 
and, cared J ifctle fo r_old- times ; he^jespected-ja^ealth 
hereveiMt came from, and wished avei-y^-prosperons 
lan to haYe_a n honn rahip s har^ in iha gr>ygrnment. 
'hree quarters of a century before, a quarrel similar to 
lat between the Whigs and the Tories had begun 
etween the Stuart kings of England on the one hand 
ad the House of Commons on the other. They had 
)ught against each other through two civil wars, 
inally the House of Commons had triumphed, and set 
p a new line of sovereigns of their own choosing, but 
le Tory always looked back a bit wistfully to the time 
hen the Stuarts were kings by sheer right of birth, and 
b suspected every Whig of being a republican in dis- 
Liise. The Whig, on the other hand, was devotedly 
yal to the new dynasty, and believed, with a good deal 
i justice, that the Tories were plotting to bring back 
le hated Stuart tyrants. The Tory's religious preju- 
ces were affected by the political questions of the time, 
id he counted every political opponent an enemy 
the Church. The Whig was a bigoted Protestant, 
id suspected his opponents of being Roman Catholics. 
3th parties were led by great rival families who handed 



34 INTRODUCTIOIV 

down their iutense jealousies ot one another from genera- 
tion to generation. The most important ditference 
between them, however, was one of self-interest. The 
country gentry and the clergy were Tories because their 
interests were wrapped up in the preservation of the 
landed estates; the great merchants were AVhigs because 
their prosperity was dependent on the growing commerce 
of England. The intensity of party feeling it would be 
hard to describe. AVhen the Tories came into power, aj 
Tory mob burned Whig chapels and religious meeting-;] 
houses ; later, courtiers and fine ladies aired their personal! 
and political quarrels before the Queen, and even the 
editors of the Spectator^ hard as they had labored to 
introduce good-nature and kindness into political lifei^ 
could not escape the spirit of the times. Their long ancj; 
earnest friondship ended in political differences and 
personal bitterness. ]\ 

During much of this time, England wal^ 
21. The War. ^y^ging a brilliant but protracted w4 
against France and Spain. To fill up her navy, ships' 
crews were kidnapping able-bodied men from the i 
streets; to fill up her armies, the recruiting sergeant wa' 
going through the country districts, gathering in th(|f 
criminals from the jails and coaxing honest men, wheir, 
drunk, to enlist for a few shillings. These men wert 
led by active young fellows of good family, who ha( 
bought their lieutenancies or captaincies for somi 
hundreds of pounds, and over them all was the gi'ea 
but dishonest commander, Marlborough. Brilliant as wen 
some of the English victories, the majority of the peopj^ 



INTRODUCTION 35 

_ne growing tired of the war. Taxes were heavy, and 
e corruption among the army officers was becoming 
ore and more scandalous. From the start, it had been 
'■ Whig war, for it was bound to increase the West 
dian commerce of England; but the Tories were now 
■ power and in their eyes the war appeared to be doing 
^-tle good. It was at this juncture that the greatest of 
'e English allies, the Austrian general, Prince Eugene, 
sited England to change, if he could, the current of 
nglish feeling. At first it seemed as if he might be 
"Ccessful. Even the Tories received him with homage, 
rr they could not forget his military skill and courage, 
fid he never ventured on the streets without being 
rrounded by eager crowds. With all his courtesy and 
nil, however, his arguments finally gave offense. Tory 
■ciety gave him the cold shoulder, and men who made 
•eir living by wi'iting Tory pamphlets uttered the senti- 
ents of the English government by abusing him with 
■ul language. 

32. Pam- The placc of the modern editorial writer 
jhieteers. qj^ ^ daily paper was taken in old times 
' these bitter, scurrilous pamphleteers. No degree of 
^rsonal slander was too coarse for them. Afraid, how- 
'er, of the law, or else of a sound cudgeling at the 
bids of their victim, they tried to cover up their full 
teaning under an absurd system of stars and dashes, 
ost of these pamphlets would seem dull to the average 
kder of to-day. Any one with a quick wit, however, 
'n detect what they must have been like from the fol- 
ding good-humored caricature of them which appears 



36 INTRODUCTION 

in the pages of the Spectator: * ' If there are four Per- 
sons in the Nation who endeavour to bring all things 
into Confusion and ruin their native Country, I think 
every honest Engl-shm-n ought to be on his guard. 
That there are such, every one will agree with me, avLo 
hears me name * * * with his first Friend and 
Favourite * * * ^q[^ ^q mention * * * j^^p 
* * * These People may cry Ch-rch, Ch-rch, as long, 
as they please, but to make use of a homely Proverb, the* 
proof of the P-dd-ng is in the eating. * * * * I love < 
to speak out and declare my mind clearly when I am: 
talking for the Good of my Country. I will not makei 

my Court to an ill Man, tho' he were a B ^y or a;, 

T 1. Nay, I would not stick to call so wretched a;j 

Politician, a Traitor, an Enemy to his Country, and a] 
Bl-nd-rb-ss, etc., etc." 
33. Jour- When the Spectator published its fii'st.| 
naiists. issuc, daily papers were a comparatively newv| 

thing. The first one ever established in England had, 
begun only nine years before, and then only in very primi-^ 
tive fashion. It was fourteen inches long, eight inches jj 
wide, and was printed only on one side of the sheet, The^^ 
reading matter of the first issue consisted of six short| 
paragraphs translated from the foreign papers. Foi|. 
news people still depended on the coffee-house,^, 
on pamphlets, on queer little weeklies, and on what wa^,, 
called the newsletter, a little manuscript journal writter, 
out by the editor with his own pen on a sheet of fin( 
paper and then painfully copied on similar sheets by hit, 
clerks. Half even of this sheet was left blank that thdL 



INTRODUCTION 37 

irchaser might add to it his own private business 
if ore lie mailed it to liis friends in the country. "It 
as our custom at Sir Roger's," says the Spectator, in 
le of its issues, "upon the coming in of the Post to sit 
)out a pot of coffee, and hear the old Knight read 
yer's Letter; which he does with his spectacles upon 
s nose, and in an audible voice — smiling very often at 
lose little strokes of satire which are so frequent in the 
ritings of that author." On account of the heavy 
strictions still hampering the freedom of the press, the 
3WS of the weeklies was meagre, misleading, and always 
:pressed with a great show of mystification. Roughly 
leaking, until the editors of the Tatler and the 
vectator set a better fashion, the ordinary journalist in 
■nglandwas a contemptible and ill-natured gossip. 
=. The Spec- It takes the nicest sort of skill to civ- 
itor Again. ^w^q barbarians who already think them- 
'Ives the most civilized of men; and this is really 
liat the Spectator set out to do. For people whose 
hole thought had been bent on following the latest 
fectation in di'ess, oaths, coquetry and dueling, it 
!t up simple and wholesome ideals of life and made 
!em popular. It commented on the little things of 
iily life, jested with suavity at extravagances, reasoned 
ith fools on their vices and follies, and in general made 
bity amusing, ostentation ridiculous, and meanness 
fntemptible. It contained some pleasant raillery for 
ose who thought it religious to wear long faces, and 
contained tokens of respect for the clergyman who 
d his duty in quiet, unostentatious fidelity. It brought 



38 INTRODU-CTION 

different classes of people together, and showed the Whig 
and the Tory "what a large extent of ground they might 
occupy in common."^ AVisdom it brought "out of 
closets and libraries, schools and colleges to dwell in: 
clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffee-houses.""^ 
36. Joseph The chief contributor to the Spectator was 
Addison. Joseph Addison, a scholar, poet, and 
diplomatist, then just in his 23rime. His early home 
life might seem too grave and formal to suit the children 
of to-day, but when Addison was young, all courtesy 
had something gi'ave and formal in it, and the circle that 
gathered under the Addison roof was at heart very 
simple and natural. His father was Dean of Lichfield,!' 
a gentleman who had traveled in France and Tangiers,'] 
and had written works highly esteemed in their time? 
his two brothers were of "excellent talent," and his* 
.sister Dorothy was "a kind of wit, very like her 
brother." At fifteen years of age young Addison 
^entered the University of Oxford. By the time 
he was twenty-one, his reputation as a man of taste 
and scholai'ship had reached the men of letters in Lon- 
don. Six years later, on the strength of some con- 
ventional verse he had written, he received a pension oi 
£300 a year, that he might fit himself for diplomatic- 
service abroad. He spent a year in France, travelec 
into Italy, where "at every turn his memory suggestec 
fresh quotations from the whole range of Latin poetry,' 
visited Vienna and returned to England in 1703. Oi" 



^ Courtliorpe, Addison in the English Men of Letters Series 
"^Spectator, No. 10. 



INTRODUCTION 39 

is return ho was invited to join the famous Kit-Cat 
Ilub, composed of the leaders of the great Whig party. 
». little later, he wrote to order a poem to commemorate 
ae victory which the great Whig general, Marlborough, 
ad won at Blenheim. Of this poem, Tlie Campaign ^ 
ne brief description of Marlborough is still remem- 
ered: 

Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 
And pleased th' Ahnighty's orders to perform 
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm. 

fut as a whole the poem, though finished and scholarly, 
light well be forgotten. It is in fact rather a tedious 
erformance. Nevertheless for this verse he was made 
Tnder Secretary of State. In 1709, he was appointed 
ecretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, where he 
rst began the sort of essays for which the Spectator 
as made him famous. In 1711, while the Spectator 
ras coming out, he purchased an estate in Warwickshire 
or £10,000; in 1713 he saw his play of Cato acted 
.efore enthusiastic throngs at the theatre; in 1716 he 
larried Lady Warwick; in 1717 he was made a Secre- 
iry of State. He retired in 1718, with a pension of 
1,500, and died one year later when still only forty- 
)ven years of age. 

!6. Addison Duriug all these ups and downs of polit- 
:': the Coffee- icLil fortiiue, lie was mingling with men of 
affairs as well as men of letters, was writing 
[olitical pamphlets as well as literary essays. With all 
iis pleasure in learning, he lived as much among people 



40 INTRODUCTION 






as among books, and, though in his light and easy style, 
he touched often, perhaps too often, on the little 
oddities in feminine fashions, he lived more among meni 
than among women. A man's man, he was seldomi! 
to be seen at fashionable assemblies. He was most! 
at home in the coffee-house which Button, an old* 
servant of his or Lady Warwick's, had established iiu 
Covent Garden. Here, with his tobacco and his wine,=| 
he sat late into the night, his friends and admirers- 
gathered around him. He, if any one, was counted the] 
leader among the great wits and wi'iters of the time 
Other men were abler than he, but none of them had the 
modesty and sweetness of temper, the lightness and 
delicacy of wit, the graceful simplicity of language 
which made the quiet Addison, when he was stimulated< 
by his friends or his surroundings, the master of every, 
conversation in which he took part. Even the 
envious but wonderfully clever Pope acknowledged' 
that Addison "had something more charming in hisi 
conversation than I ever knew in any other man, ' ' and 
the bitter, cynical Swift declared that often as they 
spent their evenings together he never wished for a 
third person. "If he had a mind to be chosen king," 
said that same biting satirist, with an enthusiastio 
humor quite unlike his usual self, "he would hardly 
be refused. ' ' 

27. Prudent There is another side to the picture, how* 
Mr. Addison, evcr. Just, kindly, often forbearing in 
his friendship, he never quite forgot to be prudent even 
in behalf of a friend. He was more likely to give a 



INTRODUCTION 41 

pendthrift good counsel than to lend him his purse in 
learty, open fashion. When it was proposed that he let 
)ff an old acquaintance from some official fee, he good- 
lumoredly replied: "I have forty friends whose fees 
^nay be worth two guineas apiece ; I lose eighty guineas 
md my friends gain but two apiece." He was in truth 
I bit cold-blooded in his friendships. "I ask no favor 
f Mr. Secretary Addison," wrote Steele, too proud to 
Solicit from a life-long colleague a kindness which a more 
enerous man than Addison would have proffered off-hand. 
38. His Yet few men in literary life have been 

ondiy Spirit, morc considcratc ; few men have guarded 
lore calmly and steadily against giving unnecessary 
iain. There is in his wittiest satires something of the 
ame quietness, something of the same placidity, which 
>ervades his familiar evening hymn : 

j Soon as the evening shades prevail, 

The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth ; 
And all the stars that round her burn. 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll. 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
What though, in solemn silence, all 
Move round this dark, terrestrial ball; 
What though no real voice or sound, 
Among their radiant orbs be found ; 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 
Forever singing as they shine, 
The hand that made us is divine. 



42 INTRODUCTION 

29. Dick When the young Addison went np to the 
Steele. famous Chai'terhouse school in London to 

finish his preparation for the university, he met among 
the pupils there a boy, six weeks his senior, who was 
destined to become his benefactor, his gallant follower, 
his colleague, his life-long admirer, and except for a 
sorry political quarrel at the very close of Addison's life, 
his life-long friend. At this time young Steele was 
under the care of an uncle, for his father had died when 
he was but five years old, and his mother had died soon 
after. "I remember," he writes, speaking of his 
father's death, "I went into the room where his body 
lay and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my 
battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin and 
calling 'Papa,' for, I know not how, I had some slight 
idea he was locked up there. My mother catched me in 
her arms, and transported beyond all patience of the 
silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me 
in her embrace, and told me in a flood of tears, Papa 
could not hear me, and would play with me no more, 
for tliey were going to put him undergTound whence he 
could never come to us again." 

Steele followed Addison to the university, 

30. TheDe- .... .1 n . 1 

taiia of but lie was so eager to jom m the war which 

his Life. -y^^g j;}jgj^ waging against France that he 
could not stay to graduate. In 1694, he enlisted as a pri- 
vate gentleman in the second troop of life-guards. A few 
years later he became a captain. His military ambitions 
had not kept him from trying his pen in a literary 
venture or so, and -by 1700 he was well known to some 



INTRODUCTION 43 

^f the chief wits of the time. In the same year, one or 
two of his acquaintances having thought fit to misuse 
him and try their valor upon him, he fought a duel in 
Hyde Park with a Captain Kelly, whom he wounded 
iangerously , though not mortally. ' ' This occurrence laid 
:he foundation of that dislike of dueling which he ever 
ifter exhibited." Finding his military life exposed to 
rnuch irregularity, he wrote his treatise on the Christian 
Hero, to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of 
kirtue and religion. This treatise he afterwards pub- 
lished "as a standing admonition against himself. " He 
lelped purify the stage by writing clean plays, was for 
I time the editor of the official newspaper of the court, 
;he Gazette, and on the 12th of April, 1709, laid the 
foundation of his permanent fame by starting a tri- 
jyeekly Journal of essays, called the Tatler, To this 
^journal Addison, then in Ireland, was a frequent and 
welcome contributor. A little later, the paper gave way 
•.oa new undertaking of theirs, the Spectator. In 1713, 
Steele was elected a member of Parliament. "Expelled 
Tom the House of Commons by the insolent and unmanly 
lanction of a majority," he was again elected to that 
3ody in 1715. In 1718, he lost his wife, who was buried 
n Westminster Abbey. From that time on he engaged in 
theatrical affairs, wrote his fourth comedy, risked and 
est his money in wildcat ventures, and finally withdrew 
io a small estate in Wales, where he died in 1729.^ 

* For the facts of this paragraph and for very much of the 
ihrasing, the editor is indebted to Mr. Austin Dobson's life of 
Steele in the English Worthies Series. 



44 INTRODUCTION 

The most characteristic thing about 
Frankness of Steele's face was the "Irish vivacity that 
Temper. lighted lip his eycs." He was one of the 
most sanguine of mortals, always active and always confi- 
dent that his latest venture would make him his fortune. 
It is said that an alchemist once duped him into believing 
that he could discover the philosopher's stone wliich 
should turn all things into gold. However this may be, 
so lively were his hopes of winning prosperity that on the 
strength of them he always ran beyond his income, and 
was always beset by creditors who somehow did not share 
his confidence. The courage with which he faced the 
future made him all the franker to acknowledge the 
shortcomings of his past. There was never any cowardly 
attempt on his part to bolster ujd his reputation. WheB: 
a correspondent took him to task in the Tatler for let-:' 
ting a piece of grossness slip into one of his comedies, he' 
accepted the correction, dwelt good-humor edly but 
soundly on its truth, and corrected the fault in the next^ 
edition of the play. His modesty was of a brave, out- 
spoken sort. He was never tired of acknowledging the 
debt he oweel to Addison for criticising and correcting 
his literary work. Any one, he declared of himselfi 
could tell from the quality of his wi'itings when Mr.' 
Addison was at home and when abroad. 
32. His Sim- Steele, however, was high-spirited enougli 
pucity of to resent injustice even from Addison, 
Feeimg. -p^^, ^^^ estrangement which separatee 
them during the closing days of Addison's life, it is hare 
to see that Steele was in any sense to blame. Addisor 



INTRODUCTION 45 

iiad attempted to confute him in a political argument, 
"^ot succeeding, perhaps, as well as he had hoped, and 
10 doubt rendered peevish by the fatal illness from 
yhich he was suffering, he finally descended into irri- 
ating little personalities. At first Steele met them with 
,Teat good humor. At last, stung by the changed atti- 
ude of his old friend, he replied to them with pathetic 
»ut dignified reproaches that did credit to his own self- 
respect, as well as to his loyalty toward old memories. In 
aany respects, Steele remained all through his life an 
vergrown boy ; he was apt to act first and think after- 

ards; he never adapted means to ends; he took his 
hances that everything would come out right in the 
nd. But when once his affection was aroused, he met 
he trials of life not only with sweetness of temper but 

ith resoluteness of heart and dignity of bearing. Any 
ne who would see with what affection, gallantry, dig- 

ity, wit and humor, a very human husband can address 

very petulant wife should read the letters^ which this 

^ The following may serve as illustrations : 

June 5th, 1708. 
Dear Prue: — What you would have me do I know not. 
11 that my fortune will compasse you shall always enjoy, 
nd have no body near, you that You do not like except I am 
lyself disapproved by You for being devotedly, 
Y'r Obedient Husband, 

Rich'd Steele. 
I shan't come home till night. 

June 7th, 1708. 
[Dear Prue: — I enclose you a Guiniea for y'r Pocket. I 
ine with Ld. Hallifax. 



46 INTRODUCTION 

captain in the Coldstream Guards dashed off on the 
impulse of the moment to his wife. They are full of 
a kindly, half -humorous appeal to her best self. "I 
am told," says his old friend Victor in his Original 
Letters, ''that he retained his cheerful sweetness ofl 
temper to the last; and would often be carried outl 
on a summer's evening, when the country lads and 
lasses were assembled at their several sports, and, with 
his pencil, give an order on his agent the mercer, for a 
new gown for the best dancer." 
33. Dobson "There have been wiser, stronger, great( 
on Steele. men, " says Austin Dobson. ''But mam 
a strong man would have been stronger for a touch ofi 
Steele's indulgent sympathy; many a gi'eat man has. 
wanted his genuine largeness of heart, many a wise mam 
might learn something from his deep and wide 
humanity." "If Addison," says the same critic,;, 
"delights us by his finish, he repels us by his restraint 
and absence of fervor ; if Steele is careless, he is always] 
frank and genial. Addison's papers are faultless in! 
their art, and in this way achieve an excellence whichi 

I wish I knew how to Court you into Good-Humour, foi 
Two or Three Quarrels more will dispatch Me quite. If yoi' 
have any Love for Me believe I am always pursuing our 
Mutual Good. Pray consider that all my little fortune is to b(p 
settled this month and that I have inadvertently made mysel: 
Liable to Impatient People whp take all advantages. If yoi 
have not patience I shall transact my businesse rashly anc 
Lose a very great sum to Quicken the time of yr being lidd o 
all people you don't like. Yrs Ever, 

RiCH'D Steele, 



INTRODUCTION 47 

] beyond the reach of Steele's quicker and more im- 
tulsive nature. But for words which the heart finds 
^hen the head is seeking; for phrases glowing with 
he white-heat of a generous emotion; for sentences 
^hich throb and tingle with manly pity or cour- 
geoiis indignation, we must turn to the essays of 
teele." 

Of Eustace Budgell, the third author 
represented in the Sir Roger de Coverley 
^apers, little need be said. He was a scapegrace 
rotege of Addison's, quarreled with his superiors in 
ffice, gambled his property away in speculation, tried to 
ecover his fortunes by forging a will, and finally, filling 
ds pockets with stones, plunged into the Thames. His 
ontributions to the Spectator were probably under 
Addison's direction, and subject to his revision. 
5. A Picture The skctchcs which compose the Sir Roger 
of the Age. ^g CoverUy Papers contain but a small 
taction of the literary work of Addison and Steele. 
Che reader who, when he has finished these papers, goes 
io further in his acquaintance with the Spectator loses 
nany of its most picturesque essays. The Spectator 
[as been read from generation to generation for its 
^btle humor; it has been read for its graceful style; but 
lost of all, perhaps, it has been read for its graphic 
ictures of a bygone age. With the exception of Pepys^s 
liary^ no English book exists to-day which tells with 
he same faithful detail how ancestors of ours have 
Doked and acted. One who has familiarized himself 
rith the Tatler and the Spectator can imagine himself 



48 INTRODUCTION 

at will among our barbarous and yet ceremonious an- 
cestors of a hundred and ninety years ago.^ 

^ After reading this volume, let the reader turn for example 
to Nos. 13, 15, 16, 64, 69, 101, 150, 251, 324, 328, 452, 454, 474, 
and 481. The truest pictures of eighteenth century life he 
will find in numbers into which the idealized old knight, Sin 
Roger, does not enter. 



I 



EOGEE DE COVERLET PAPERS 

I 

THE SPECTATOR . 
[No. 1.— Addison. Thursday, March 1, 1710-11.] 

Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare Incem 
' Cogitat, ut speciosa deliinc miracula promat.^ 

— Horace. 

I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book 
with pleasure till he knows whether the wi'iter of it be 
a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, 
married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like 
nature, that conduce very much to the right under- 
standing of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which 
is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my 
next as prefatory discourses to my following wTitings, 
and shall give some account in them of the severaP per- 
sons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble 
of compiling, digesting and correcting will fall to my 
share, I must do myself the justice to open the work 
with my own history. 

^ He means to produce not smoke from flame but light from 
smoke, so that he may bring forth in succession wondrous 
beauties. 

^ Note the force of the here. 

49 



50 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, accord- 
ing to the tradition of the village where it lies, was 
bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William the 
Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has been 
delivered down from father to son whole and entire, 
without the loss or acquisition of a single field or 
meadow, during the space of six hundred years. There 
runs a story in the family, that my mother dreamt that 
she was brought to bed of a judge: Whether this 
might proceed from a lawsuit which was then depend- la' 
ing in the family, or my father's being a justice of the 
peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to 
think it presaged any dignity* that I should arrive at in 
my future life, though that was the interpretation which 
the neighborhood put upon it. The gravity of my be- m 
havior at my very first appearance in the world, seemed 
to favor my mother's dream : For, as she has often told 
me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months 
old, and would not make use of my coral until they had 
taken away the bells from it. 

As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in 
it remarkable, T shall pass it over in silence. I find 
that during my nonage, I had the reputation of* a very 
sullen youth, but was always a favorite with my school- j 
master, who used to say, "that my parts were solid, and i 
would wear well." I had not been long at the Uni- 
versity before I distinguished myself by a most profound 
silence: For during the space of eight years, excepting 
in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered 
the quantity of an hundi^ed words ; and indeed do not s 



21 



THE SPECTATOR 51 

remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in 
my whole life. Whilst I was in this learned body, I 
applied myself with so mnch diligence to my studies, 
that there are very few celebrated books, either in the 
learned or the modern tongues, which I am not 
acquainted with. 

Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel 
into foreign countries, and therefore left the University, 
with the character of an odd, unaccountable fellow, 
that had a great deal of learning, if I would but show 
it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into 
all the countries of Europe, in which there was anything 
new or strange to be seen : nay, to such a degree was my 
curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of 
I some great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I 
made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the 
measure of a pyramid ; and as soon as I had set myself 
right in that particular, returned to my native couutry 
with gi-eat satisfaction. 

I I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am 
frequently seen in most public places, though there are 
not above half a dozen of my select friends that know 
me; of whom my next paper shall give a more particulai 
account. There is no place of general resort wherein I 
do not often make my appearance ; sometimes I am seen 
thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, 
and listening with gi'eat attention to the narratives that 
are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes 
I smoke a pipe at Child's, and whilst I seem attentive 
ito nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation 



52 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights 
at St. James's coffee-house, and sometimes join the 
little committee of politics in the inner -room, as one who 
comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise 
very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in 
the theatres, both of Drur^^ Lane and the Hay Market. 
I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange : 
for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew 
in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In 
short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix 
with them, though I never open my lips but in my own 
club. 

Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator^ of man- 
kind, than as one of the species, by which means I have 
made myself a sjjeculative statesman, soldier, merchant, 
and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical 
part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of an 
husband, or a father, and can discern the errors in the 
economy, business, and diversion of others, better than 
those who are engaged in them : as standcrs-by discover 
blots which are apt to escape those who are in the 
game. I never espoused any party with violence, and 
am resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the 
Whigs and Tories^ unless I shall be forced to declare 
mj^self by the hostilities of either side. In short, I have 

^ The Spectator is an imaginary cliaracter, Macaulay 
justly says of it, however, "It is not easy to doubt that the ji 
portrait was meant to be in some features a likeness of the i! 
painter, — Addison." 

2 In the following pages, does he succeed in doing this? 



THE SPECTATOR 53 

acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on, which is 
the character I intend to preserve in this paper. 

I have given the reader just so much of my history 
and character, as to let him see I am not altogether 

,5 unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As 
for other particulars in my life and adventures, I 
shall insert them in following papers, as I shall see 
occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how 
much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame 

jio my own taciturnity ; and since I have neither time nor 
inclination, to communicate the fulness of my heart in 
speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print 
myself out,* if possible, before I die. I have been 
often told by my friends that it is a pity so many useful' 

f5 discoveries which I have made should be in the pos- 
session of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I 
shall publish a sheetf ul of thoughts every morning foi 
the benefit of my contemporaries ; and if I can any way 
contribute to the diversion, or improvement of the 

:o country in which I live, I shall leave it when I am sum- 
moned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking 
that I have not lived in vain. 

There are three very material points which I have not 
spoken to* in this paper, and which, for several impor- 

^ tant reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some 
time: I mean, an account of my name, my age, and my 
lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my reader in 
anything that is reasonable ; but as for these three par- 
ticulars, though I am sensible they might tend very 

» much to the embellishment of my paper, I cannot yet 



i 



54 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

come to a resolution of communicating them to the 
public. They would indeed draw me out of that 
obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and 
exj^ose me in public places to several salutes and 
civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to 
me ; for the greatest pain I can suffer is the being talked 
to and being stared at. It is for this reason, likewise, 
that I keep my complexion and dress as very great 
secrets; though it is not impossible but I may make 
discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have 
undertaken. 

After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall 
in to-morrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen 
who are concerned with me in this work. For, as I 
have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted 
(as all other matters of importance are) in a club. 
However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the 
front, those who have a mind to correspond with me, 
may direct their letters to tlie Spectator, at Mr. Buck- 
ley's in Little Britain. For I must further acquaint 2t: 
the reader, that though our club meets only on Tuesdays 
and Thursdays, we have apj^ointed a committee to sit 
every night for the inspection of all such papers as may 
contribute to the advancement of the public weal. 

C. 



11 

THE CLUB 
[N9. "2 — Steele. Friday, March S.] 

Ast alii sex, 

Et plures, conclamant ore.^ 

— Juvenal 

The fii'st of our society is a gentleman of Worcester- 
shire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger 
de Coverley. His great grandfather was inventor of that 
famous country-dance which is called after him. All 
who know that shire are very well acquainted with the 
parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that 
is very singular in his behavior, but his singularities 
proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to 
the manners of the world only as he thinks the world is 

in the wrong. However, this humor* creates him no 
enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; 
and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes 
him but the readier and more capable to please and 
oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives 

5 in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself a bachelor 
by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse, beauti- 
ful widow of the next county to him. Before this dis- 
appointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine 

^ But six others and more cry out together with one voice. 

55 



56 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester 
and Su' George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first 
coming* to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public 
coffee-house for calling him ' 'youngster. ' ' But being ill- 
used by the above-mentioned widow, he was very serious 
for a year and a half; and though, his temper being 
naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless 
of himself, and never di'essed afterwards ; he continues 
to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in 
fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry ii 
humors, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times 
since he fii'st wore it. ^== * * * ^ * He is |( 
now in his fifty -sixth year, cheerful, gay, and 
hearty; keeps a good house both in town and 
country; a gi'eat lover of mankind; but there is lii 
such a mirthful cast in his behavior that he is rather 
beloved than esteemed.* His tenants grow rich, his 
servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love 
to him, and the young men are glad of his company: 
When he comes into a house he calls the servants by % j 
their names, and talks all the way up stairs to a visit. I 
must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum ; 
that he fills the chair at a quarter -session with great 
abilities, and, three months ago, gained universal applause 
by explaining a passage in the Game Act. 

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among 
us is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner 
Temple; a man of great probity, wit,* and understand- 
ing ; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to 
obey the direction of an old humorsome father, than in a| 



THE CLUB 57 

pursuit of liis own inclinations. He was placed there 
to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of 
any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and 
Longinus are much better understood by him than 

5 Littleton or Coke. The father sends up, every post, 
questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and 
tenures, in the neighborhood; all which questions he 
agrees with an attorney to answer* and take care of in the 
lump: He is studying the passions themselves, when he 

'o should be inquiring into the debates, among men, which 
arise from them. He knows the argument* of each of 
the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case 
in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took 
him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, 

|5 know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him 
at once both disinterested and agreeable : As few of his 

I thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them 

I fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too 
just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but 
approves of very few. His familiarity with the cus- 
toms, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients 
makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to 
him in the present world. He is an excellent critic, 
and the time of the play is his hour of business; 
exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses 
through Russell Court, and takes a turn at Will's till 
the play begins ; he has his shoes rubbed and his peri- 
wig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose. 
It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play, 

t) for the actors have an ambition to please him. 



68 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS | 

The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Eree- 
port, a merchant of great eminence in the city of Lon- 
don, a person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, 
and great experience. His notions of trade are noble 
and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some 
sly way of jesting which would make no great figure 
were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British 
Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its 
parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous 
way to extend dominion by arms ;^ for true power is to i 
be got by arts and industry. He will often argue that 
if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should 
gain from one nation; and if another, from another. 
I have heard him prove that diligence makes more last- 
ing acquisitions than valor, and that sloth has ruined 
more nations than the sword. He abounds in several 
frugal maxims, among which the gi'eatest favorite is, 
"A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of 
good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar ; 
and Sir Andrew having a natural, unaffected eloquence, 
the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure 
that wit would in another man. He has made his for- 
tunes himself, and says that England may be richer 
than other kingdoms by as plain methods as he himself 
is richer than other men ; though at the same time I can 
say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass 
but blows home a ship in which he is an owner. 

Next to Sir Andrew in the club-room sits Captain 

^ How do you explain Sir Andrew Freeport's position on the 
war? See Introduction, Sections 20 and 21. 



THE CLUB 59 

Sentry, a gentleman of gi'eat courage, good understand- 
ing, but invincible modesty. He is one of those that 
deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting 
their talents within the observation of such as should 
take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and 
behaved himself with great gallantry in several engage- 
ments and at several sieges ; but having a small estate of 
his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted 
a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his 

\o merit who is not something of a courtier as well as a 
soldier. I have heard him often lament that in a pro- 
fession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, 
impudence should get the better of modesty. When he 
has talked to this purpose I never heard him make a 

15 sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the 
world because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty 
and an even, regular behavior are in themselves obstacles 
to him that must press through crowds who endeavor at 
the same end with himself, — the favor of a commander. 

to He will, however, in this way of talk, excuse generals 
for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquir- 
ing into it, "For," says he, "that great man who has a 
mind to help me, has as many to break through to come 
at me as I have to come at him": Therefore he will 
conclude that the man who would make a figure, espe- 
cially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, 
and assist his patron against the importunity of other 
pretenders by a proper assurance in his own vindication. 
He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in assert- 

» ing what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to 



60 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

be slow in attacking when it is your dnt3\ With this 
candor does the gentleman speak of himself and others. 
The same frankness runs through all his conversation. 
The military part of his life has furnished him with 
many adventures, in the relation of which he is very 5 
agreeable to the company ; for he is never overbearing, 
though accustome' to command men in the utmost 
degree below him ; nor ever too obsequious from an habit | 
of obeying men highly above him. 1 

But that our society may not appear a set of humor- id 
ists,* unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of 
the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, 
a gentleman who according to his years should be in the 
decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of 
his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has 
made but very little impression either by wrinkles on his 
forehead or traces in his brain. His person is well 
turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that sort 
of discourse with which men usually entertain women. 
He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers 
habits* as others do men. He can smile when one 
speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history 
of every mode, and can inform you from which of the : 
French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this 
manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their 
hoods ; whose frailty was covered by such a sort of petti- 
coat, and whose vanity to show her foot made that part 
of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his 
conversation and knowledge has been in the female 
world: As other men of his age will take notice to you 'c 



THE CLUB 61 

what such a minister said upon such and such an occa- 
sion, he will tell you Avhen the Duke of Monmouth 
danced at court such a woman was then smitten, another 
was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. 

5 In all these important relations, he has ever about the 
same time received a kind glance or a blow of a fan 
from some celebrated beauty, mother of the present Lord 
Such-a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that 
said a lively thing in the House, he starts up: "He has 

good blood in his veins ; Tom Mirabell begot him, the 
rogue cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's 
mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever 
made advances to." This way of talking of his very 
much enlivens the conversation among us of a more 

15 sedate turn ; and I find there is not one of the company 
but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him 
as of that sort of man who is usually called a well-bred, 
fine gentleman. To conclude his character, where 
women are not concerned he is an honest, worthy man. 
I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am 
next to speak of as one of our company, for he visits us 
but seldom; but when he does, it adds to every man else 
a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very 
philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of 
life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the 
misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and conse- 
quently cannot accept of such cares and business as 
preferments in his functions would oblige him to, he is 
therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor is 

among lawyers. The probity of his mind and the integ- 



6k/ ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

rity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or 
loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject 
he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in years, that he 
observes when he is among us, an earnestness to have 
him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats 5 
with much authority, as one wdio has no interests in this 
world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his 
wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmi- 
ties. These are my ordinary companions. K, 



I 



Ill 

SIR ROGER ON FASHION AND VIRTUE 

[No. 6. — Steele. Wednesday, March 7.] 

Credebant hoc grande nefas, et morte piandum, 
Si juvenis vetulo non assurrexerat-^ 

■ — Juvenal. 

I know no evil under the sun so great as the abuse* of 
the understanding, and yet tliere is no one vice more 
common. It has diffused itself through both sexes, and 
all qualities* of mankind, and there is hardly that per- 
son to be found, who is not more concerned for the 
reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue. 
But this unhappy affectation of being wise rather than 
honest, witty than good-natured, is the source of most 
of the ill habits of life. Such false impressions are 
owing to the abandoned writings of men of wit, and the 
awkward imitation of the rest of mankind. 

For this reason Sir Roger was saying last night, That 
he was of opinion none but men of fine parts deserve to 
be hanged. The reflections of such men are so delicate 
upon all occurrences which they are concerned in, that 
they should be exposed to more than ordinary infamy 
and punishment for offending against such quick* 

'They held it to be gross impiety, worthy of death, if a 
youth did not rise in the presence of age. 



64 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

admonitions as their own souls give them, and blunting i 
the fine edge of their minds in such a manner that they 
are no more shocked at vice and folly than men of slower ? 
capacities. There is no greater monster in being than a I 
very ill* man of great parts. He lives like a man in a 5 
palsy, with one side of him dead. While perhaps he .1 
enjoys the satisfaction of luxury, of wealth, of ambition, |l 
he has lost the taste of good-will, of friendship, of inno- 
cence. Scarecrow, the beggar, in Lincoln's -Inn-Fields, 
who disabled himself in his right leg and asks alms all 10 v 
day to get himself a warm supper and a trull at night, is 
not half so despicable a wretch, as such a man of sense. 
The beggar has no relish above sensations; he finds rest 
more agreeable than motion ; and while he has a warm 
fire and his doxy, never reflects that he deserves to be 1^ 
whipped. 

"Every man who terminates* his satisfactions and 
enjoyments within the supply of his own necessities and 
passions is," says Sir Roger, "in my eye, as poor a rogue 
as Scarecrow. But," continued he, "for the loss of aa^ 
public and private virtue, we are beholden to your men ^ 
of fine parts, forsooth; it is with them no matter what is 
done, so it is done with an air. But to me, who am so 
whimsical in a corrupt age as to act according to nature 
and reason, a selfish man, in the most shining circum- ssi' 
stance* and equipage*, appears in the same condition 
with the fellow above mentioned, but more contemptible 
in proportion to what more he robs the public of and 
enjoys above him.* I lay it down therefore for a rule, 
that the whole man is to move together; that every so 



SIE ROGER ON FASHION AND VIRTUE 65 

action of any importance is to have a prospect of public 
good ; and that the general tendency of our indifferent 
actions ougnt co be agreeable to the dictates of reason, 
of religion, of ?ood-breeding ; without this, a man, as I 

5 have before hinted, is hopping instead of walking, he is 
not in his entii*e and proper motion." 

While the honest knight was thus bewildering himself 
in good starts, I looked intentively upon him, which 
made him, I thought, collect his mind a little. **What 

,0 I aim at," says he, "is to represent that I am of opin- 
ion, to polish our understandings and neglect oiu* man- 
ners is of all things the most inexcusable. Reason 
should govern passion, but instead of that, you see, it 
is often subservient to it; and, as* unaccountable as one 
would think it, a wise man is not always a good man." 
This degeneracy is not only the guilt of particular* 
persons, but also, at some times, of a whole people ; and 
perhaps it may appear upon examination, that the 
most polite ages are the least virtuous. This may be 
attributed to the folly of admitting wit and learning as 
merit in themselves, without considering the application 
of them. By this means it becomes a rule, not so much 
to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this false 
beauty will not pass upon men of honest minds and true 

f taste. Sir Richard Blackmore says, with as much good 
sense as virtue, "It is a mighty dishonor and shame to 
employ excellent faculties and abundance of wit, to 
humor and please men in their vices and follies. The 
great enemy of mankind, notwithstanding his wit and 
angelic faculties, is the most odious being in the whole 



G6 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

creation." He goes on soon after to say, very gener- 
ously, that he undertook the writing of his poem "to 
rescue the Muses out of the hands of ravishers, to restore 
them to theii- sweet and chaste mansions, and to engage 
them in an employment suitable to their dignity. ' ' This 
certainly ought to be the purpose of every man who 
appears in public, and whoever does not proceed upon 
that foundation, injures his country as fast as he suc- 
ceeds in his studies. When modesty ceases to be the 
chief ornament of one sex, and integi'ity of the other, lo 
society is upon a wrong basis, and we shall be ever after 
without rules to guide our judgment in what is really 
becoming and ornamental. Nature and reason direct 
one thing, passion and humor another. To follow the 
dictates of the two latter is going into a road that is both m 
endless and intricate; when we pursue the other, our 
passage is delightful, and what we aim at easily attain- 

able. 

I do not doubt but England is at present as polite a 
nation as any in the world; but any mauAvho thinks, can 
easily see that the affectation of being gay and in fashion 
has very near eaten up our good sense and our religion. 
Is there anything so just, as that mode and gallantry 
should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper 
and agreeable to the institutions of justice and piety 
among us? And yet is there anything more common, 
than that we run in perfect contradiction to them? All 
which is supported by no other pretension than that it 
is done with what we call a good grace. 

Nothing ou2-ht to be held laudable, or becoming, but 



SIR ROGER ON FASHION AND VIRTUE 67 

what nature itself should prompt us to think so. 
Respect to all kinds of superiors is founded, methinks, 
upon instinct ; and yet what is so ridiculous* as age? 
I make this abrupt transition to the mention of this vice 

6 more than sljij other, in order to 'introduce a little story, 
which I think a pretty instance that the most polite age 
is in danger of being the most vicious. 

It happened at Athens, during a public representation 
of some play exhibited in honor of the commonwealth, 

\o that an old gentleman came too late for a place suit- 
able to his age and quality. Many of the young gentle- 
men who observed the difficulty and confusion he was 
in, made signs to him that they would accommodate him 
if he came where they sat. The good man bustled 

ib through the crowd accordingly ; but when he came to 
the seats to which he was invited, the jest was to sit 
close and expose him, as he stood out of countenance to 
the whole audience. The frolic went round all the 
Athenian benches. But on those occasions there were 

io also particular places assigned for foreigners. When the 
good man skulked towards the boxes appointed for the 
Lacedemonians, that honest people, more virtuous than 
polite, rose up all to a man, and with the greatest 
respect received him among them. The Athenians 

!5 being suddenly touched with a sense of the Spartan 
virtue and their own degeneracy, gave a thunder of 
applause; and the old man cried out, "The Athenians 
understand what is good, but the Lacedemonians 
practise it. '* E. 



IV 



THE CLUB AGAIN 
[No. 34. — Addison. Monday, April 9.'\ 

Parcit 

Cognatis maculis similis fera .* 

— Juvenal. 

The club of wliich I am a member is very luckily com- 
posed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of 
life, and deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous 
classes of mankind : By this means I am furnished with 
the gi^eatest variety of hints and materials, and know s 
everything that passes in the different quarters and 
divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole 
kingdom. My readers, too, have the satisfaction to find 
that there is no rank or degree among them who* have 
not their representative in this club, and that there is 1 
always somebody present who will take care of their 
respective interests, that nothing may be written or 
publislied to the prejudice or infringement of their just 
rights and privileges. 

I last night sat very late in company with this select 1 
body of friends, who entertained me with several 
remarks which they and others had made upon these my 



• A wild beast spares the creature spotted like itself, 

68 



I 

I 



THE CLUB AGAIN 69 

speculations, as also with the various success which they 
had met with among their several ranks and degrees of 
readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest* man- 
ner he could, that there were some ladies ("But for your 

5 comfort," says Will, "they are not those of the most 
wit") that were offended at the liberties I had taken 
with the opera and the puppet-show : That some of them 
were likewise very much surprised that I should think 
such serious points as the dress and equipage of persons 

10 of quality, proper subjects for raillery. 

He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took 
him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted 
at had done great good in the city, and that all their 
wives and daughters were the better for them; and 

15 further added, that the whole city thought themselves 
very much obliged to me for declaring my generous 
intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a 
multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of 
particular intrigues. "In short," says Sir Andi'ew, "if 

JO you avoid that foolish, beaten road of falling upon alder- 
men and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity 
and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of gen- 
eral use." 

Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew 

s "that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after 
that manner ; that the city had always been the province 
for satire; and that the wits of King Charles's time 
jested upon nothing else during his whole reign." He 
then shewed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, 

Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies 



70 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

of the stage and court had never been accounted too 
sacred for ridicule, how gi'eat soever the persons might 
be that patronized them. '^But after all," says he, '*I 
think your raillery has made too great an excursion, in 
attacking several persons of the Inns of Court ; and I do 5 
not believe you can show me any precedent for your 
behavior in that particular." 

My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said 
nothing all this while, began his speech with a ''Pish!" 
and told us that he wondered to see so many men of loi 
sense so very serious upon fooleries. ''Let our good i 
friend," says he, "attack every one that deserves it; I j 
would only advise you, Mr. Spectator" (applying him- 
self to me), "to take care how you meddle with country 
squires : They are the ornaments of the English nation ; 15 
men of good heads and sound bodies ! and, let me tell 
you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention 
fox-hunters with so little respect." 

Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occasion. 
What he said was only to commend my prudence in not 20 
touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to 
act discreetly in that point. 

By this time I found every subject of my speculations 
was taken away from me, by one* or other of the 
club, and began to think m3^self in the condition of the S5; 
good man that had one wife who took a dislike to his 
gray hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking 
out what each of them had an aversion to, they left his 
head altogether bald and naked. 

While I was thus musing with myself, my worthy sc^ 



THE CLUB AGAIN 71 

friend the clergyman, who, very luckily for me, was at 
the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us 
that he wondered any order of persons should think 
themselves too considerable to be advised : That it was 

5 not quality,* but innocence, which exempted men from 
reproof: That vice and folly ought to be attacked 
wherever they could be met with, and especially when 
they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of 
life. He further added, that my paper would only serve 

to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed 
those who are already depressed, and in some measure 
turned into ridicule, by the meanness of their conditions 
and circumstances. He afterward proceeded to take 
notice of the great use this paper might be of to the 

5 public, by reprehending those vices which are too trivial 
for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for 
the cognizance of the pulpit. He then advised me to 
prosecute my undertaking with cheerfulness, and assured 
me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should 

fio be approved by all those whose praises do honor to the 
persons on whom they are bestowed. 

The whole club pays a particular deference to the dis- 
course of this gentleman, and are drawn into what he 
says, as much by the candid, ingenuous manner with 

»5 which he delivers himself, as by the strength of argu- 
ment and force of reason which he makes use of. Will 
Honeycomb immediately agreed that what he had said 
was right, and that, for his part, he would not insist 
upon the quarter which he had demanded for the ladies. 

?o Sir Andrew gave up the city Vv'ith the same frankness. 



72 KOGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

The Templar would not stand out, and was followed by 
Sir Roger and the Captain — who all agreed that I should 
be at liberty to carry the war into what quarter I pleased, 
provided I continued to combat with criminals in a 
body, and to assault the vice without hurting the person. 

This debate, which was held for the good of man- 
kind, put me in mind of that which the Roman triumvi- 
rate were formerly engaged in for their destruction. 
Every man at first stood hard for his friend, till they found 
that by this means they should spoil their proscription ; loji 
and at length, making a sacrifice of all their acquaint- 
ance and relations, furnished out a very decent execution. 

Having thus taken my resolutions to march on boldly 
in the cause of virtue and good sense,, and to annoy their 
adversaries in whatever degi'ee or rank of men they may ii 
be found, I shall be deaf for the future to all the 
remonstrances that shall be made to me on this account. 
If Punch grows extravagant, I shall reprimand him very 
freely: If the stage becomes a nursery of folly and 
impertinence, I shall not be afraid to animadvert upon 2(| 
it. In short, if I meet with anything in city, court, or 
country, that shocks modesty or good manners, I shall 
use my utmost endeavors to make an example of it. I 
must, however, intreat every particular person who does 
me the honor to be a reader of this paper, never to think 2s| 
himself, or any one of his friends or enemies, aimed at 
in what is said: for I promise him, never to draw a 
faulty character which does not fit at least a thousand 
people ; or to publish a single paper that is not written 
in the spirit of benevolence and with a love to mankind. 



A LADY'S LIBRARY 
[No. S7.— Addison. Thursday, ApHl 12.] 

-Non ilia colo calathisve Minervse 

Femineas assueta manus .* 

— Virgil. 

Some months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the 
country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain 
lady, whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora,* 
and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me 

5 to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I 
waited upon her Ladyship pretty early in the morning, 
and was desired by her woman to walk into her Lady's 
library, till such time as she was in a readiness to receive 
me. The very sound of a lady^s library gave me a great 
curiosity to see it ; and as it was some time before the 
lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a 
great many of her books, which were ranged together in 
a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which 
were finely bound and gilt) were gi'eat jars of china 

5 placed one above another in a very noble piece of archi- 
tecture. The quartos were separated from the octavos 
by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful 
pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of 



\ 



* Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskilled. — Dryden, 

T3 



74 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

all shapes, colors, and sizes, which were so disposed on 
a wooden frame that they looked like one continued 
pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture and 
stained with the greatest variety of dyes. 

That part of the library which was designed for the 
reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose 
papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of 
one of the prettiest grotesque works that ever I saw, and 
made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, 
trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china Mjj 
ware. In the midst of the room was a little japan table, '' 
with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a 
silver snuff box made in the shape of a little book, I 
found there were several other counterfeit books upon 
the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and i8i 
served only to fill up the number, like fagots in the mus- 
ter of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such 
a mixed kind of furniture as seemed very suitable both 
to the lady and the scholar, and did not know, at first, 
whether I should fancy myself in a grotto or in a 20^ 
library. 

Upon my looking into the books, I found there were 
some few which the lady had bought for her own use; 
but that most of them had been got together, either 
because she had heard them praised, or because she had 25:;' 
seen the authors of them. Among several that I ' 
examined, I very well remember these that follow: 

Ogilby's Virgil. 

Dryden's Juvenal. ' 

Cassandra. 3© 



A LADY'S LIBRARY 75 

Cleopatra. 

Astrgea. 

Sir Isaac Newton's Works. 

The Grand C3rrus; with a pin stuck in one of the 
^ middle leaves. 

Pembroke's Arcadia. 

Lock of Human Understanding;* with a paper oi 
patches in it. 

A spelling-book. 

A dictionary for the explanation of hard words. 

Sherlock upon Death. 

The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. 

Sir William Temple's Essays. 

Father Malebranche 's Search after Truth; translated 
5 into English. 

A book of novels. 

The Academy of Compliments. 

Culpepper's Midwifery. 

The Ladies' Calling. 

Tales in Verse, by Mr. D'Urfey; bound in red 
leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several 
places. 

All the classic authors in wood. 

A set of Elzevirs by the same hand.* 

*A poor pun on Locke's famous essay concerning the 
Human Understanding, 

*The phrase "by the same hand" was a common phrase at 
this time for "by the same author." Here it means by the 
binder or carpenter, — a sly hit at the superficiaUty of Leo- 
nora's understanding. 



76 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

Clelia; which opened of itself in the place that 
describes two lovers in a boAver. 

Baker's Chronicle. 

Advice to a Daughter. 

The New Atalantis, with a key to it. 

Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.^ 

A prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water by 
the side of it. 

Dr. Sacheverell's speech. 

Fielding's Trial. 

Seneca's Morals. 

Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. 

La Ferte's Instructions lor Country Dances. 

I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these 
and several other authors, when Leonora entered, and, 155 
upon my presenting her with the letter from the knight 
told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir 
Roger was in good health; I answered ''Yes," for I 
hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired. 

Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still 20 
a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or 
three years, and being unfortunate in her first marriage, 
has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. 
She has no children to take care of, and leaves the 
management of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. 
But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy, 
and falls asleep, that is not agitated by some favorite 

^ Written by Dick Steele in one of his serious moments. 
Addison doesn't resist the temptation to quiz him on the sub- 
ject. See Introduction, Section 30. 



A LADY'S LIBRARY 77 

pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the pas- 
sions of her sex into a love of books and retirement. 
She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said 
herself) , but it is only in their writings ; and admits ot 
very few male visitants except my friend Sir Roger, 
whom she hears with great pleasure and without scandal. 
As her reading has lain very much among romances, it 
has given her a very particular* turn of thinking, and 
discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her 

) furniture. Sir Roger has entertained me an hour 
together with a description of her country seat, which 
is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred 
miles distant from London, and looks like a little 
enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into 

J artificial grottoes covered with woodbines and jessamines. 
The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, 
and filled with cages of turtles. * The springs are made to 
run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur 
very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beau- 
tiful lake that is inhabited by a couple of swans, and 
empties itself by a little rivulet, which runs through a 
green meadow, and is known in the family by the name 
of The Purling Stream. 

The knight likewise tells me that this lady preserves 

3 her game better than any of the gentlemen in the 
country. *'Not," says Sir Roger, *'that she sets so 
great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon 
her larks and nightingales ; for she says that every bird 
which is killed in her ground will spoil a concert, and 

that she shall certainly miss him the next year." 



78 EOGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

When I think how oddly this lady is improved by 
learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admhation 
and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which 
she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does 
she appear than those of her sex who employ themselves 5 
in diversions that are less reasonable, though more in 
fashion. What improvements would a woman have 
made, who is so susceptible of impressions from what she 
reads, had she been guided to such books as have a tend- 
ency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the lO 
passions, as well as to those which are of little more use 
than to divert the imagination. 

But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully 
in reading shall be the subject of anotlier paper, in 
which I design to recommend such particular books as li 
may be proper for the improvement of the sex. And as 
this is a subject of a very nice nature, I shall desire my 
correspondents to give me their thoughts^ upon it. 

^For these thoughts, see Spectators Nos. 92 and 140. 
Addison and Steele are more interesting when they talk as 
members of the club than when they talk in the persons of 
their correspondents. 



VI 

COVERLEY HALL 



[No. 106. —Addison. Monday, July 2.] 



Hinc tibi copia 
Manabit ad plenum, benigno 
Ruris honorum opuleDta cornii. ^ 

—Horace 

Having often received an invitation from my friend, 
Sir Roger de Coverley, to pass away a month with him 
in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, 
and am settled with him for some time at his country- 

5 lionse, where I intend to form several of my ensning 
speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted 
with my humor, lets me rise and go to bed when I 
please, dine at his own table or in my chamber, as I 
think fit, sit still and say nothing, without bidding me 

be meiTy. When the gentlemen of the country come to 
see him, he only shows me at a distance : As I have been 
walking in his fields I have observed them stealing a 
sight of me over an hedge, and have heard the knight 
desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to 

5 be stared at. 

I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family because 

^ Here plenty shall flow for you and pour out the riches ol 
the honors of the country. 



80 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

it consists of sober and staid persons; for, as the knight 
is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his 
servants ; and as he is beloved by all about him, his serv- 
ants never care for leaving him: By this means his 
domestics are all in years, and grown old with their i 
master. You would take his valet de cliamhre for his 
brother, his butler is gray-headed, his groom is one of 
the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his coachman 
has the looks of a privy counsellor. Y^ou see the good- 
ness of the master even in the old house-dog, and in a n 
gray pad that is kept in the stable with great care and 
tenderness, out of regard to his past services, though he 
has been useless for several years. 

I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure 
the joy that appeared in the countenances of these ifi 
ancient domestics upon my friend's arrival at his 
country-seat. Some of them could not refrain from tears 
at the sight of their old master; every one of them 
pressed forward to do something for him, and seemed 
discouraged if they were not employed. At the same 
time the good old knight, with a mixture of the father 
and the master of the family, tempered the inquiries 
after his own affairs with several kind questions relating 
to themselves. This humanity and good-nature engages 
everybody to him, so that when he is pleasant* upon any 
of them, all his family are in good humor, and none so 
much as the person whom he diverts himself with : On 
the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of 
old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret : 
concern in the looks of all his servants. 






COVERLEY HALL 81 

My worthy friend has put me under the particTilar 
care of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as 
well as the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desir- 
ous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their 
master talk of me as of his particular friend. 

My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting 
himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable 
man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his 
house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. 
This gentleman is a person of good sense and some 
learning, of a very regular life and obliging conversation : 
He heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very 
much in the old knight's esteem, so that he lives in the 
family rather as a relation than a dependant. 

I have observed in several of my papers that my friend 
Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is something of 
an humorist ; and that his virtues as well as imperfec- 
tions are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance 
which makes them particularly his, and distinguislies 
them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it 
is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his 
conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than 
the same degi^ee of sense and virtue would appear in 
their common and ordinary colors. Ae I was walking 
with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good 
man whom I have just now mentioned, and without 
staying for my answer, told me that he was afraid of 
being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table, 
for which reason he desired a particular friend of his, at 
the University, to find him out a clergyman rather of 



82 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

plain sense than mncli learning, of a good aspect, a 
clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if possible, a man 
that understood a little of backgammon. My friend, 
says Sir Roger, found me out this gentleman, who, 
besides the endowments required of him, is, they tell 5 
me, a good scholar, though he does not show it ;^ I have 
given him the parsonage of the parish, and, because I 
know his value, have settled upon him a good annuity 
for life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was 
higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He 
has now been with me thirty years, and though he does 
not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all that 
time asked anything of me for himself, though he is 
every day soliciting me for something in behalf of one 
or other of my tenants, his parishioners. There has not i 
been a lawsuit in the parish since he has lived among 
them; if any dispute arises they apply themselves to him 
for the decision; if they do not acquiesce in his judg- 
ment, which I think never happened above once, or 
twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling 
with me I made him a present of all the good sermons 
which have been printed in English, and only begged of 
him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them 
in the pulpit. Accordingly he has digested them into 
such a series that they follow one another naturally, and ^ 
make a continued system of practical divinity. 

As Sir Roger was going on in his story, the gentleman 

^ Sir Roger very pleasantly magnifies his office as country 
squire, and forgets that it takes a scholar to recognize a 
scholar. 



1 



COVERLEY HALL 83 

we were talking of came up to us; and upon the knight 'a 
asking him who preached to-morrow (for it was Satur- 
day night), told us the Bishop of St. Asaph in the morn- 
ing and Doctor South in the afternoon. He then 

5 showed us his list of preachers for the whole year, where 
I saw with a great deal of pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, 
Bishop Saunderson, Doctor Barrow, Doctor Calamy, 
with several living authors who have published discourses 
of practical divinity. I no sooner saw this venerable 

man in the pulpit but I very much approved of my 
friend's insisting upon the qualifications of a good aspect 
and a clear voice ; for I was so charmed with the grace- 
fulness of his figure and delivery, as well as with the dis- 
ccurses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any 

^ time more to my satisfaction. A sermon repeated after 
this manner is like the composition of a poet in the 
mouth of a graceful actor. 

I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy 
would follow this example ; and, instead of wasting their 

p spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would 
endeavor after a handsome elocution, and all those other 
talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned 
by greater masters. This would not only be more easy 
to themselves, but more edifying to the people. L. 

I 



VII 

THE COVERLEY HOUSEHOLD 
[No. 107.— Steele. Tuesday, July 3."] 

^sopo ingentem statuam posuere Attici, 
Servumque coUocarunt asterna in basi, 
Patere honoris scirent ut cunctis viam, ^ 

— PhcEdrus. 

The reception, manner of attendance, undisturbed 
freedom and quiet, which I meet with here in the 
country, has confirmed me in the opinion I always had, 
that the general corruption of manners in servants is 
owing to the conduct of masters. The aspect of every 5» 
one in the family carries^ so much satisfaction, that it 
appears he knows the happy lot which has befallen him 
in being a member of it. There is one particular which 
I have seldom seen but at Sir Roger's; it is usual in all 
other places, that servants fly from the parts of the house lo 
through which their master is passing ; on the contrary, 
here they industriously place themselves in his way ; and 
it is on both sides, as it were, understood as a visit, when 
the servants appear without calling. This proceeds 

> The Athenians erected a large statue to ^sop, and placed 
him, a slave, on an eternal pedestal, to show that the path to 
honor lies open to all. 

*Find a paraphrase for this somewhat strained expression. 

84 



THE COVERLEY HOUSEHOLD 85 

from the humane and equal temper of the Man of the 
House, who also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a 
great estate with such economy as ever to be much 
beforehand. This makes his own mind untroubled, and 

6 consequently unapt to vent peevish expressions, or give 
passionate or inconsistent orders to those about him. 
Thus respect and love go together ; and a certain cheer- 
fulness in performance of then- duty is the particular 
distinction of the lower part of this family. When a 

servant is called before his master, he does not come 
with an expectation to hear himself rated for some trivial 
fault, threatened to be stripped,* or used with any other 
unbecoming language, which mean* ma-sters often give 
to worthy servants ; but it is often to know, what road 

1 5 he took, that he came so readily back according to order ; 

r whether he passed by such a ground; if the old man 
who rents it is in good health ; or whether he gave Sir 
Roger's love to him, or the like. 

A man who preserves a respect founded on his benev- 

JO olence to his dependents lives rather like a prince than a 
master in his family ; his orders are received as favors 
rather than duties; and the distinction of approaching 
him is part of the reward for executing what is com- 
manded by him. 

!5 There is another circumstance in which my friend 
excels in his management, which is the manner of 
rewarding his servants. He has ever been of opinion, 
that giving his cast* clothes to be worn by valets has a 
very ill effect upon little minds, and creates a silly sense 

» of equality between the parties, in persons affected only 



86 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

with outward things. I have heard him often pleasant 
on this occasion, and describe a young gentleman abus- 
ing his man in that coat, which a month or two before 
was the most pleasing distinction he was conscious of in 
himself. He would turn his discourse still more pleas- 
antly upon the ladies' bounties of this kind; and I have 
heard him say he knew a fine woman, who distributed 
rewards and punishments in giving becoming or unbe- 
coming dresses to her maids. 

But my good friend is above these little instances of ic 
good-will, in bestowing only trifles on his servants; a 
good servant to him is sure of having it in his choice very 
soon of being no servant at all. As I before observed, 
he is so good an husband,* and knows so thoroughly 
that the skill of the purse is the cardinal virtue of this is 
life ; I say, he knows so well that frugality is the sup- 
port of generosity, that he can often spare a large fine 
when a tenement falls, and give that settlement to a 
good servant who has a mind to go into the world, or 
make a stranger pay the fine to that servant, for his 20 
more comfortable maintenance, if he stays in his service. 

A man of honor and generosity considers it would be 
miserable to himself to have no will but that of another, 
though it were of the best person breathing, and for that 
reason goes on as fast as he is able to put his servants 25 
into independent livelihoods. The greatest part of Sir 
Roger's estate is tenanted by persons who have served 
himself or his ancestors. It was to me extremely pleas- 
ant to observe the visitants from several parts to wel- 
come his arrival into the country : and all the difference 30 






THE COVERLEY HOUSEHOLD 8? 

that I could take notice of between the late servants who 
came to see him, and those who stayed in the family, 
was that these latter were looked upon as finer gentlemen 
and better courtiers. 

This manumission and placing them in a way of liveli- 
hood I look upon as only what is due to a good servant, 
which encouragement will make his successor be as 
diligent, as humble, and as ready as he was. There is 
something wonderful in the narrowness of those minds 
which can be pleased and be barren of bounty to those 
who please them. 

One might, on this occasion, recount the sense that 
great persons in all ages have had of the merit of their 
dependants, and the heroic services which men have done 
their masters in the extremity of their fortunes; and 
shown to their undone patrons that fortune* was all the 
difference between them ; but as I design this my specu- 
lation only as a gentle admonition to thankless masters, I 
shall not go out of the occurrences of common life, but 

() assert it, as a general observation, that I never saw, bat 
in Sir Roger's family and one or two more, good servants 
treated as they ought to be. Sir Roger's kindness 
extends to their children's children, and this very morn- 
ing he sent his coachman's grandson to prentice. I 

5 shall conclude this paper with an account of a picture in 
his gallery, where there are many which will deserve my 
future observation. 

At the very upper end of this handsome structure I 
saw the portraiture of two young men standing in a 

river, the one naked, the other in a livery. The person 



88 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

supported seemed half dead, but still so much alive as to | 
show in his face exquisite joy and love towards the ] 
other. I thought the fainting figure resembled my 
friend Sir Eoger; and, looking at the butler, who stood 
by me, for an account of it, he informed me that the 6 
person in the livery was a servant of Sir Roger's, who '■ 
stood, on the shore while his master was swimming, and 
observing him taken with some sudden illness, and sink 
under water, jumped in and saved him. He told me Sir 
Roger took* off the dress he was in as soon as he came * 
home, and by a gTcat bounty at that time, followed by 
his favor ever since, liad made him master of that 
pretty seat which we sav/ at a distance as we came to 
this house. I remembered indeed Su* Roger said there 
lived a very worthy gentleman, to whom he was highly t 
obliged, without mentioning anything further. Upon 
my looking a little dissatisfied at some part of the pic- 
ture, my attendant informed me that it was against Sir 
Roger's will, and at the earnest request of the gentleman 
himself, that he was drawn in the habit in which he had a 
saved his master, R. 



VIII 

WILL WIMBLE 
[No. 108.— Addison. Wednesday, Jidy 4.] 

Gratis anhelans, multa agendo nihil agens.^ 

— Phcedrus. 

As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir Roger 
before his house, a country fellow brought him a huge 
fish, which, he told him, Mr. William Wimble* had 
\ caught that very morning; and that he presented it, 
6 with* his service to him, and intended to come and dine 
with him. At the same time he delivered a letter, 
which my friend read to me as soon as the messenger left 
him. 

' "Sir Roger: 

10 "I desire you to accept of a jack, which is the 

best I have caught this season. I intend to come 
\ and stay with you a week, and see how the perch bite in 
I the Black River. I observed with some concern, the 

last time I saw you upon the bowling-green, that your 
15 whip wanted a lash to it : I will bring half a dozen with 
I me that I twisted last week, which I hope will serve you 

all the time you are in the country. I have not been 

' Out of breath for no purpose ; in doing many things, doing 
nothing. 



90 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

out of the saddle for six days last past, having been at 
Eton with Sir John's eldest son. He takes to his learn- 
ing hngely. 

"I am, sir, your humble servant, 

"Will Wimble.*' 5 

This extraordinary letter and message that accom- 
panied it made me very curious to know the character 
and quality of the gentleman who sent them, which I 
found to be as follows. W^ill AVimble is younger brother 
to a baronet, and descended of the ancient family of the lo 
AVimbles. He is now between forty and fifty, but, being 
bred to no business and born to no estate, he generally 
lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his 
game. He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in 
the country, and is very famous for finding out a hare. 15 
He is extremely well versed in all the little handicrafts 
of an idle man ; he makes a may-fly to a miracle ; and 
furnishes the whole country with angle-rods. As he is 
a good-natured, officious* fellow, and very much 
esteemed upon account of his family, he is a welcome 20 
guest at every house, and keeps up a good correspond- 
ence* among all the gentlemen about him. He carries 
a tulip-root in his pocket from one to another, or 
exchanges a puppy between a couple of friends that live 
perhaps in the opposite sides of the county. Will is a 25 
particular favorite of all the young heirs, whom he fre- 
quently obliges with a net that he has weaved, or a set- 
ting-dog that he has made himself. He now and then 
presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to their 
mothers or sisters, and raises a gi-cat deal of mirth among 30 






WILL WIMBLE 91 

them by inquiring, as often as he meets them, lioiv they 
ivear. These gentleman-like manufactures and obliging 
little humors make AVill the darling of the country. 

Sir Eoger was proceeding in the character of him, 
when we saw him make up to us with two or three 
hazel -twigs in his hand that he had cut in Sir Roger's 
woods, as he came through them, in his way to the 
house. I was very much pleased to observe on one side 
the hearty and sincere welcome with which Sir Roger 
received him, and on the other, the secret joy which 
his guest discovered at sight of the good old knight. 
After the first salutes were over, Will desired Sir Roger 
to lend him one of his servants to carry a set of shuttle- 
cocks he had with him in a little box to a lady that lived 
5 about a mile off, to whom it seems he had promised 
such a present for above this half year. Sir Roger's 
back was no sooner turned but honest Will began to tell 
i me of a large cock pheasant that he had sprung in one 
of the neighboring woods, with two or three other 
adventures of the same nature. Odd and uncommon 
characters are the game that I look for and most delight 
in ; for which reason I was as much pleased with the 
novelty of the pers 3n that talked to me as he could be 
for his life with the springing of a pheasant, and there- 
's fore listened to him with more than ordinary attention. 
In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dinner, 
where the gentleman I have been speaking of had the 
pleasure of seeing the huge jack he had caught, served 
up for the first dish in a most sumptuous manner, 
to Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long account 



92 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

how he had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at 
length drew it out upon the bank, with several other 
particulars that lasted all the first course. A dish of 
wild fowl that came afterwards furnished conversation 
for the rest of the dinner, which concluded with a late 5 
invention of AVill's for improving the quail-pipe. 

Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was 
secretly touched with compassion towards the honest 
gentleman that had dined with us, and could not but 
consider with a great deal of concern how so good an u 
heart and such busy hands were wholly employed in 
trifles ; that so much humanity should be so little bene- 
ficial to others, and so much industry so little advan- 
tageous to himself. The same temper of mind and 
application to aifairs might have recommended him to it 
the public esteem, and have raised his fortune in another 
station of life. What good to his country or himself 
might not a trader or merchant have done with such 
useful though ordinary qualifications? 

Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother 2C 
of a great family, who had rather see their children 
starve like gentlemen than thrive in a trade or profession ( 
that is beneath their quality. This humor fills several 
parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the 
happiness of a trading nation, like ours, that the 25 
younger sons, though uncapable of any liberal art or 
profession, may be placed in such a way of life as may 
perhaps enable them to vie with the best of their family. 
Accordingly we find several citizens that were launched 
into the world with narrow fortunes, rising by an honest so 



WILL WIMBLE 93 

industry to greater estates than those of their elder 
brothers. It is not improbable but Will was formerly 
tried at divinity, law, or physic; and that finding his 
genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at 

6 length to his own inventions : But certainly, however 
improper he might have been for studies of a higher 
nature, he was perfectly well turned for the occupations 
of trade and commerce. As I think this a point which 
cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader 

10 to compare what I have here written with what I have 
said in my Twenty-First Speculation. ju. 



IX 

THE FAMILY PORTRAITS 
[No. 109. —Steele. Tliursday, July 5.] 

Abnormis sapiens." 

— Horace. 

I was this morning walking in the gallery, when Sir 
Roger entered at the end opposite to me, and, advancing 
towards me, said he was glad to meet me among his rela- 
tions, the de Coverleys, and hoped I liked the conversa- 
tion of so much good company, who were as silent as 5 
myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures, and, as he 
is a gentleman who does not a little value himself upon 
his ancient descent, I expected he would give me some 
account of them. We were now arrived at the upper end 
of the gallery, when the knight faced towards one of lO 
the pictures, and, as we stood before it, he entered into 
the matter, after his blunt way of saying things as they 
occur to his imagination, without regular introduction 
or care to preserve the appearance of chain of thought. 

"It is," said he, "worth while to consider the force 15 
of dress, and how the persons of one age differ from 
those of another merely by that only. One may observe, 
also, that the general fashion of one age has been fol- 

1 Oddly wise. 

94 



THE FAMILY PORTRAITS 95 

lowed by one particular set of people in another, and by 
them preserved from one generation to another. Thus, 
the vast jetting coat and small bonnet, which was the 
habit in Harry the Seventh's time, is kei3t on in the 

5 yeomen of the guard ; not without a good and politic 
view, because they look a foot taller, and a foot and a 
half broader: Besides that the cap leaves the face 
expanded, and consequently more terrible, and fitter to 
stand at the entrance of palaces. 

10 "This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after 
this manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than 
mine, were he in a hat as I am. He was the last man that 
won a prize in the Tilt Yard (which is now a common 
street before Whitehall), You see the broken lance that 

15 lies there by his right foot : he shivered that lance of his 
adversary all to pieces; and, bearing himself, look you, 
sir, in this manner, at the same time he came within the 
target* of the gentleman who rode against him, and 
taking him with incredible force before him on the 

20 pommel of his saddle, he in that manner rid the 
tournament over, with an air that showed he did it 
rather to perform the rule of the lists than expose his 
enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use 
of a victory, and, with a gentle trot, he marched up to 

25 a gallery where their mistress sat (for they were rivals) 
and let him down with laudable courtesy and pardonable 
insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where 
the coffee-house is now. 

"You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a 

30 military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he 



96 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at 
court ; yon see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt 
sword. The action at the Tilt Yard you may be sure 
won the fair lady, who was a maid of honor, and the 
greatest beauty of her time; here she stands, the next 5 
picture. You see, sir, my great-great-great-gi*andmother 
has on the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the 
modern is gathered at the waist; my grandmother 
appears as if she stood in a large di'um, whereas the 
ladies now walk as if they were in a go-cart. * For all 10 
this lady was bred at court, she became an excellent 
country wife; she brought ten children, and, when I 
show you the library, you shall see, in her own hand 
(allowing for the difference of the language), the best 
receipt now in England both for an hasty-pudding and 15 
a white-pot. 

"If you please to fall back a little — because it is neces- 
sary to look at the three next pictures at one view — these 
are three sisters. She on the right hand, who is so very 
beautiful, died a maid; the next to her, still handsomer, 20 
had the same fate, against her will ; this homely thing 
in the middle had both their portions added to her own, 
and was stolen by a neighboring gentleman, a man of 
stratagem and resolution, for he poisoned tlii^ee mastiffs to 
come at her, and knocked down two deer -stealers in 25 
carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families. 
The theft of this romp and so much money was no 
great matter to our estate. But the next heir that 
possessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see 
there: Observe the small buttons, the little boots, the 30 



THE FAMILY PORTRAITS 97 

laces, the slashes* about his clothes, and, above all, the 
posture he is drawn in (which to be sure was his own 
choosing) ; you see he sits with one hand on a desk, 
writing and looking, as it were^ another way, like an 
easy writer or a sonneteer. He was one of those that 
had too much wit to know how to live in the world ; he 
was a man of no justice, but great good manners ; he 
ruined everybody that had anything to do with him, but 
never said a rude thing in his life; the most indolent 

person in the world, he would sign a deed that passed 
away half his estate, with his gloves on, but would not 
put on his hat before a lady if it were to save his coun- 
try. He is said to be the first that made love by squeez- 
ing the hand. He left the estate with ten thousand 

5 pound^s debt irpon it; but, however, by all hands I have 
been informed that he was every way the finest gentle- 
man in the world. That debt lay heavy on our house 
for one generation ; but it was retrieved by a gift from 
that honest man you see there, a citizen of our name, 

but nothing at all akin to us. I know Sir Andi-ew 
Freeport has said behind my back that this man was 
descended from one of the ten children of the maid of 
honor I showed you above ; but it was never made out. 
We winked* at the thing, indeed, because money was 

5 wanting at that time." 

Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned 
my face to the next portraiture. 

Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in 
the following manner: "This man" (pointing to him I 

D looked at) "I take to be the honor of our house, Sir 



98 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

Humphrey de Coverley; he was, in his dealings, as 
punctual as a tradesman and as generous as a gentleman. 
He would have thought himself as much undone by 
breaking his word as if it were to be followed by bank- 
ruptcy. He served his country as knight of this shire to 8 
his dying day. He found it no easy matter to maintain 
an integrity in his words and actions, even in things 
that regarded the offices* which were incumbent upon 
him, in the care of his own affairs and relations of life, 
and therefore dreaded (though he had great talents) to lo 
go into employments of state, where he must be exposed 
to the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and great 
ability were the distinguishing parts of his character; 
the latter, he had often observed, had led to the 
destruction of the former, and used frequently to lament i5! 
that great and good had not the same signification. He 
was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to 
exceed such a degi'ee of wealth ; all above it he bestowed 
in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at 
for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his 20 
industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and 
fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the service 
of his friends and neighbors." 

Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended 
the discourse of this gentleman by telling me, as we fol- 36 
lowed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave 
man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the Civil 
Wars; *'for,'* said he, "he was sent out of the field 
upon a private message the day before the battle of 
Worcester." 



THE FAMILY PORTRAITS 99 

The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within 
a day of danger, with other matters above mentioned, 
mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I waa 
Diore delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicity. 



THE COVERLEY GHOST 
[No. 110.— Addison. Friday, July 6.] 

Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa sileutia terrent.^ 

— Virgil. 

At a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among 
the ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged 
elms, which are shot up so very high that, when one 
passes under them, the rooks and crows that rest upon 
the tops of them seem to be cawing in another region. 
I am very much delighted with this sort of noise, which 
I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who 
supplies the wants of His whole creation, and who, in 
the beautiful language of the Psalms, feedeth the young 
ravens that call upon Him. I like this retirement the 
better, because of an ill report it lies under of being 
haunted ; for which reason (as I have been told in the 
family) no living creature ever walks in it besides the 
chaplain. My good friend, the butler, desired me, with 
a very grave face, not to venture myself in it after sun- 
set, for that one of the footmen had been almost frighted 
out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the 
shape of a black horse without an head ; to which he 

^ On every side horror makes our hearts quail, the very 
eilence terrifies. 

100 



THE COVERLEY GHOST lOl 

added, that about a month ago one of the maids coming 
home late that way, with a pail of milk upon her head, 
heard such a rustling among the bushes that she let it 
fall. 

> I was taking a walk in this place last night, between 
the hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it 
one of the most proper scenes in the world for a ghost 
to appear in. The ruins of the abbey are scattered up 
and down on every side, and half covered with ivy and 

) elder bushes, the harbors of several solitary birds which 
seldom make their appearance till the dusk of the evening. 
The place was formerly a church -yard, and has 
still several marks in it of graves and burying-places. 
There is such an echo among the old ruins and vaults 
that, if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you 
hear the sound repeated. At the same time the walk of 
elms, with the croaking of the ravens, which from time 
to time are heard from the tops of them, looks exceeding 
solemn and venerable. These objects naturally raise 
seriousness and attention ; and when night heightens the 
awfulness of the place, and pours out her supernumerary 
horrors upon everything in it, I do not at all wonder 
that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions. 

Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the Association of Ideas, 
has very curious remarks to show how, by the prejudice 
of education, one idea often introduces into the mind a 
whole set that bear no resemblance to one another in the 
nature of things. Among several examples of this kind, 
he produces the following instance: "The ideas of gob- 
lins and sprites have really no more to do with darkness 



102 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

than light ; yet, let but a foolish maid inculcate these 
often on the mind of a child, and raise them there 
together, possibly he shall never be able to separate their 
again so long as he lives, but darkness shall ever after- 
wards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall 
be so joined that he can no more bear the one than the 
other." 

As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk ol 
the evening conspired with so many other occasions ol 
terror, I observed a cow grazing not far from me^ 
which an imagination that was apt to startle might easily 
have construed into a black horse without an head ; and( 
I dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon some sucH 
trivial occasion. 

My friend Sir Roger has often told me with a great 
deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate, he 
found three parts of his house altogether useless ; thai 
the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, 
and by that means was locked up ; that noises had been 
heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get 
servant to enter it after eight o 'clock at night ; that the' 
door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there 
went a story in the family that a butler had formerl}) 
hanged himself in it ; and that his mother, who lived tc 
a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in 
which either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. 
The knight, seeing his habitation reduced to so small a 
compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own 
house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the 
apartments to be flung open and exorcised by his chap- 



THE COVERLEY GHOST 103 

lain, who lay in every room one after another, and by 
that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned 
in tlie family. 

I should not have been thus particular upon these 

5 ridiculous horrors, did I not find them so very much 
prevail in all i:)arts of the country. At the same time, I 
think a person who is thus terrified with the imagina- 
tion of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than 
one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred 

10 and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions 
of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous 
and groundless; could not I give myself up to this 
general testimony of mankind, I should to the relations 
of particular persons who are now living, and whom I 

15 cannot distrust in other matters of fact. I might here 
add, that not only the historians, to whom we may join 
the poets, but likewise the philosophers of antiquity 
have favored this opinion. Lucretius himself, though 
by the course of his philosophy he was obliged to main- 

20 tain that the soul did not exist separate from the body, 
makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and that 
men have often appeared after their death. This I 
think very remarkable; he was so jDressed with the 
matter of fact which he could not have the confidence to 

25 deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the 
most absurd, unphilosophical notions that was ever 
started. He tells us that the surfaces of all bodies are 
perpetually flying off from their respective bodies one 
after another, and that these surfaces or thin cases that 

3c included each other, whilst they were joined in the body, 



104 ROGKR DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire 
when they are separated from it ; by which means we 
often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are 
either dead or absent. 

I shall dismiss this paper with a story out of Josephus, 5 
not so much for the sake of the story itself as for the 
moral reflections with which the author concludes it, 
and which I shall here set down in his own words: 

"Glaphyra, the daughter of King Archelaus, after the 
death of her two first husbands (being married to a lo 
third, who was brother to her. first husband, and so 
passionately in love with her that he turned off his 
former wife to make room for this marriage) had a very 
odd kind of dream. She fancied that she saw her first 
husband, coming towards her, and that she embraced 15 
him with great tenderness; when in the midst of the 
pleasure which she expressed at the sight of him, he 
reproached her after the following manner : 

" 'Glaphyra,' says he, 'thou hast made good the old 
saying that women are not to be trusted. Was not I the 80 
husband of thy virginity? Have I not children by thee? 
How couldst thou forget our loves so far as to enter into 
a second marriage, and after that into a third, nay, to 
take for thy husband a man who has so shamelessly crept 
into the bed of his brother. However, for the sake of 25 
our past loves, I shall free thee from thy present 
reproach, and make thee mine for ever.' 

"Glaphyi'a told this dream to several women of her 
acquaintance, and died soon after. 

"I thought this story might not be impertinent in this 30 



THE COVERLEY GHOST 105 

place wlierein I speak of those* kings : Besides that, the 
example deserves to be taken notice of, as it contains a 
most certain proof of the immortality of the soul, and of 
divine providence. If any man thinks these facts 
5 incredible, let him enjoy his own opinion to himself, 
but let him not endeavor to disturb the belief of others, 
who by instances of this nature are excited to the study 
of virtue." L. 



XI 

SUNDAY WITH SIR ROGER 

[No. 11^.— Addison. Monday, July 9.] 

Tt>a.i 

— Pythagoras. 
I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, 
and tliink, if keeping holy tlie seventh day w^ere only a 
human institution, it would be the best method that 
could have been thought of for the polishing and civil- 
izing of mankind. It is certain the country people would b 
soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians 
were there not such frequent returns of a stated time in 
which the whole village meet together with their best 
faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one 
another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties lo 
explained to them, and join together in adoration of the 
Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the 
whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the 
notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon 
appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting 15 
all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the 
eye of the village. A country fellow distinguishes 
himself as much in the church-yard as a citizen does 
^ First fear the immortal gods, as the law directs. 

i06 



SUNDAY WITH SIR ROGER 107 

upon the Change, the wliole parish politics being gener- 
ally discussed in that place, either after sermon or before 
the bell rings. 

My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has 

5 beautified the inside of his church with several texts of 
his own choosing; He has likewise given a handsome 
pulpit cloth, and railed in the communion table at his 
own expense. He has often told me that, at his coming 
to his estate, he found his parishioners very irregular ; 

10 and that, in order to make them kneel and join in the 
responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a 
Common-Prayer-Book, and at the same time employed 
an itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country 
for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of 

15 the Psalms ; upon which they now very much value 
themselres, and indeed outdo^ most of the country 
churches that I have ever heard. 

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, 
he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody 

20 to sleep in it besides himself; for, if by chance he has 
been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recover- 
ing out of it he stands up and looks about him, and, if 
he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them him- 
self, or sends his servant to them. Several other of the 

25 old knight's particularities break out upon these occa- 
sions ; sometimes he will be* lengthening out a verse in 
the Singing-Psalms half a minute after the rest of the 
congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is 

' What is implied in this word? 



108 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces 
*'Amen" three or four times to the same prayer; and 
sometimes stands up when everybody^ else is upon their 
knees, to count the congregation, or set? if any of his 
tenants are missing. 5 

I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old 
friend, in the midst of the service, calling out to one 
John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not 
disturb the congregation. This John Matthews, it 
seems, is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that lo 
time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This 
authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd 
manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of 
life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not 
polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behavior ; i5 
besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his 
character make his friends observe these little singular- 
ities as foils that rather set off than blemish his good 
qualities. 

As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody presumes to 20 
stir till Sir Roger is gone out of the church. The 
knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between 
a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing to him 
on each side, and every now and then inqukes how such 
^in one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he 25 
does not see at church, — which is understood as a secret 
reprimand to the person that is absent. The chaplain 
has often told me that, upon a catechising day, when 

^ Notice the error in grammar. 



SUNDAY WITH SIR ROGER 109 

Sir Roger had been pleased with a boy that answers well, 
he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his 
encouragement, and sometimes accompanies it with a 
flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise 
5 added five pounds a year to the clerk's place and that he 
may encourage the young fellows to make themselves 
perfect in the church -service, has promised upon the 
death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to 
bestow it according to merit. 

10 The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his 
chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, 
is the more remarkable, because the very next village is 
famous for the differences and contentions that rise 
between the parson and the 'squire, who live in a per- 

15 petual state of war. The parson is always preaching at 
the 'squire; and the 'squire, to be revenged on the 
parson, never comes to church. The 'squire has made 
all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers ; while the par- 
son instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his 

20 order, and insinuates to them in almost every sermon 
that he is a better man than his patron. In short, 
matters have come to such an extremity, that the 'squire 
has not said his prayers either in public or private this 
half year; and that the parson threatens him, if he does 

25 not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of 
the whole congregation. 

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the 
country, are very fatal to the ordinary people ; who are 
so used to be dazzled with riches, that they pay as much 

30 deference to the understanding of a man of an estate, as 



110 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

of a man of learning ; and are very hardly brought to 
regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that 
is preached to them, when they know there are several 
men of five hundred a year who do not believe it. 

L. 



XII 

SIR ROGER IN LOVE 
[No. llS.—Steele. Tuesday, July 10.] 

• Haerent infixi pectore vultus.^ 

— Virgil. 

In my first description of the company in which I pass 
most of my time, it may be remembered that I men- 
tioned a gTeat affliction which my friend Sir 'Roger had 
met with in his yonth : which ^vas no less than a disap- 

5 pointment in love. It happened this evening that we 
fell into a very pleasing walk at a distance from his 
house: As soon as we came into it, "It is," quoth the 
good old man, looking round him with a smile, "very 
hard that any part of my land should be settled* upon 

10 one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow did ; 
and yet I am sure I could not see a sprig of any bough 
of this whole walk of trees but I should reflect upon her 
and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of 
any woman in the world. You are to know this was 

15 the place wnerein I used to muse upon her ; and by* 
that custom I can never come into it but the same tender 
sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually 
walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. 

* The face abides deep graven in one's heart. 

Ill 



112 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of 
several of these trees ; so unhappy is the condition of men 
in love to attempt the removing of their passions by the 
methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She has 
certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world." 

Here followed a profound silence ; and I was not dis- 
pleased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a 
discourse which I had ever before taken notice he 
industriously avoided. After a very long pause he 
entered upon an account of this great circumstance in iO( 
his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea of 
him above what I had ever had before ; and gave me the 
picture of that cheerful mind of his before it received 
that stroke which has ever since affected his words and 
actions. But he went on as follows : 15 

*'I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and 
resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my 
ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before 
me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighbor- 
hood, for the sake of my fame ; and in country sports 2a 
and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my 
twenty-third year I was obliged to serve as Sheriff of the 
County; and in my servants, officers, and whole equip- 
age, indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not 
think ill of his own person) in taking that public occa- 
sion of showing my figure and behavior to advantage. 
You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I 
made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well 
dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music 
before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well 30; 



SIR ROGER IN LOVE 113 

bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with 
the kind looks and glances I had from all the bal- 
conies and windows, as I rode to the hall where the 
assizes were held. But when I came there, a beautiful 
5 creature in a widow's habit sat in court, to hear the 
event of a cause concerning her dower. This command- 
ing creature (who was born for destruction of all who 
behold her) put on such a resignation in her counte- 
nance, and bore the whispers of all around the court with 

10 such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then 
recoTered herself from one eye to another, till she was 
perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in 
all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, 
she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met 

15 it but I bowed like a great surprised booby; and, know- 
ing her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like 
a captivated calf as I was, 'Make way for the defend- 
ant's* witnesses.' This sudden partiality made all the 
county immediately see the sheriff also was become a 

so slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was 
upon trial, she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such 
a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to 
have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be 
in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, 

35 by acting before so much company, that not only I but 
the whole court was prejudiced in her favor; and all that 
the next heir to her husband had to urge was thought so 
gi'oundless and frivolous that, when it came to her coun- 
sel to reply, there was not half so much said as every one 

w besides in the court thought he could have m-ged to her 



I 



114 '^ ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

advantage. Yon must understand, sir, this pervei'se 
woman is one of those unaccountable creatures that 
secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge 
themselves in no further consequences. Hence it is that 
she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes 5 
from her slaves in town to those in the country accord- 
ing to the seasons of the year. She is a reading lady, 
and far gone in the pleasures of friendship; she is always 
accompanied by a confidante, who is witness to her daily 
protestations against our sex, and consequently a bar to lo 
her first steps towards love, upon the strength of her own 
maxims and declarations. 

"However, I must needs say this accomplished mis- 
tress of mine has distinguished me above the rest, and 
has been known to declare Sir Roger de Coverley was the is 
tamest and most human of all the brutes in the country. 
I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me; 
but, upon the strength of this slender encouragement of 
being thought least detestable, I made new liveries, new- 
paired my coach-horses, sent them all to town to be 20 
bitted and taught to throw their legs well and move all 
together, before I pretended to cross the country and 
wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suit- 
able to the character of my fortune and youth, I set out 
from hence to make my addi-esses. The particular skill 35, 
of this lady has ever been to inflame your wishes and 
yet command respect. To make her mistress of this 
art, she has a gTcater share of knowledge, wit, and good 
sense than is usual even among men of merit. Then 
she is beautiful beyond the race of women. If you 



SIR ROGER IN LOVE 115 

won't let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, 
and the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her 
real charms, and strike you with admiration instead of 
desire. It is certain that, if you were to behold the 

5 whole woman, there is that dignity in her aspect, that 
compos m-e in her motion, that complacency in her 
manner, that if her form makes you hope, her merit 
makes you fear. But then again, she is such a desper- 
ate* scholar that no country gentleman can approach her 

io without being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when 
I came to her house I was admitted to her presence with 
great civility; at the same time she placed herself to be 
first seen by me in such an attitude, as I think you call 
the posture of a picture, that she discovered new charms, 

15 and I at last came towards her with such an awe as 
made me speechless. This she no sooner observed but 
she made her advantage of it, and began a discourse to 
me concerning love and honor, as they both are followed 
by pretenders, and the real votaries to them. When 

she had discussed these points in a discourse which I 
verily believe was as learned as the best philosopher in 
Europe could possibly make, she asked me whether she 
was so happy as to fall in with my sentiments on these 
important particulars. Her confidante sat by her, and, 

5 upon my being in the last confusion and silence, this 
malicious aide of hers, turning to her, says, 'I am very 
glad to observe Sir Roger pauses upon this subject, and 
seems resolved to deliver all his sentiments upon the 
matter when he pleases to speak.' They both kept their 
countenances, and after I had sat half an hour medi- 



116 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

tating how to behave before such profound casuists, I rose 
up and took my leave. Chance has since that time 
thrown me very often in her way, and she as often has 
directed a discourse to me which I do not understand. I 
This barbarity has kept me ever at a distance from the 5 
most beautiful object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus 
also she deals wdth all mankind, and you must make 
love to her, as you would conquer the sphinx, by posing 
her. But were she like other women, and that there 
were any talking to her, how constant must the pleasure ic 
of that man be who could converse with a creature — 
But, after all, you may be sure her heart is fixed on 
some one or other; and yet I have been credibly 
informed — but who can believe half that is said? After 
she had done speaking to me, she put her hand to her i£ 
bosom and adjusted her tucker. Then she cast her eyes 
a little down, upon my beholding her too earnestly. 
They say she sings excellently : Her voice in her ordinary 
speech has something in it inexpressibly sweet. You 
must know I dined with her at a public table the day 2C 
after I first saw her, and she helped me to some tansy in 
the eye of all the gentlemen in the country : She has 
certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. I 
can assure you, sir, were you to behold her you would be 
in the same* condition, for as her speech is music her 2£ 
form is angelic. But I find I grow irregular while I am 
talking of her ; but indeed it would be stupidity to be 
unconcerned at such perfection. Oh, the excellent 
creature! she is as inimitable to all women as she is 
inaccessible to all men." 3C 



SIR ROGER IN LOVE 117 

I found my friend begin to rave and insensibly led him 
towards the house that we might be joined by some 
other company; and am convinced that the widow is the 
secret cause of all that inconsistency which appears in 
5 some parts of my friend's discourse ; though he has so 
much command of himself as not directly to mention her, 
yet according to that* of Martial which one knows not 
how to render in English, ^^Dum tacet lianc loquitur.'*'' 
I shall end this paper with that whole epigram which 
10 represents with much humor my honest friend's condi* 
tion. 

Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est nisi Naevia Rufo; 
Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur : 
Cenat, propinat, poscit, negat, annuit — una est 
15 Naevia , si non sit Naevia, mutus erit. 

Scriberet liesterna patri cum luce salutem, 
"Naevia lux," inquit, "Naevia lumen, ave." 

Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, 
Still he can nothing but of Naevia talk ; 
20 Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute, 

Still he must speak of Naevia or be mute ; 
He writ to his father, ending with this line, — 
*'I am, my lovely Naevia, ever thine." 

R. 



XIII 

THE COVERLEY ECONOMY 
[No. 114. — Steele. Wednesday, July 11.] 

Paupertatis pudor et fuga ,^ 

— Horace. 

Economy in our affairs has the same effect upon our 
fortunes which good breeding has upon our conversa- 
tions. There is a pretending behavior in both cases 
which instead of making men esteemed renders them 
both miserable and contemptible. We had yesterday at 
Sir Roger's a set of country gentlemen who dined with 
him ; and after dinner the glass was taken by those who 
pleased pretty plentifully. Among others I observed a 
person of a tolerable -good aspect who seemed to be more 
greedy of liquor than any of the company, and yet, 
methought, he did not taste it with delight. As he 
grew warm, he was suspicious of everything that was 
said; and as he advanced towards being fuddled, his 
humor grew worse. At the same time his bitterness 
seemed to be rather an inward dissatisfaction in his own 
mind than any dislike he had taken to the company. 
Upon hearing his name, I knew him to be a gentleman 
of a considerable fortune in this county, but greatly in 

* The shame and dread of poverty. 

118 



THE COVERLEY ECONOMY 119 

debt. What gives the unhappy man this peevishness of 
spirit is, that his estate is dipped, and is eating out with 
usury ; and yet he has not the heart to sell any part of 
it. His proud stomach, at the cost of restless nights, 
5 constant inquietudes, danger of affronts, and a thousand 
nameless inconveniences, preserves this canker in his 
fortune, rather than it shall be said he is a man of fewer 
hundreds a year than he has been commonly reputed. 
Thus he endures the torment of poverty, to avoid the 

10 name of being less rich. If you go to his liouse you see 
gi'eat plenty, but served in a manner that shows it is all 
unnatural, and that the master's mind is not at home. 
There is a certain waste and carelessness in the air of 
everything, and the whole appears but a covered indi- 

15 gence, a magnificent poverty. That neatness and cheer- 
fulness which attends the table of him who lives within 
compass is wanting, and exchanged for a libertine way of 
service in all about him. 

This gentleman's conduct, though a very common way 

20 of management, is as ridiculous as that officer's would be 
who had but few men under his command, and should 
take the charge of an extent of country rather than of a 
small pass. To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's 
hands a greater estate than he really has, is of all others* 

25 the most unpardonable vanity, and must in the end 
reduce the man who is guilty of it to dishonor. Yet, if 
we look round us in any county of Great Britain, we 
shall see many in this fatal error ; if that may be called by 
so soft a name which proceeds from a false shame of 

to appearing what they really are, when the contrary 



120 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

behavior would in a short time advance them to the con- 
dition which they pretend to. 

Laertes has fifteen hundred pounds a year, which is 
mortgaged for six thousand pounds ; but it is impossible 
to convince him that if he sold as much as would pay off 5 
that debt he would save four* shillings in the pound, 
which he gives for the vanity of being the reputed master 
of it.^ Yet, if Laertes did this, he would perhaps be 
easier in his own fortune; but then, Irus, a fellow of 
yesterday, who has but twelve hundi'cd a year, would be lO) 
his equal. Eather than this shall be, Laertes goes on to 
bring well-born beggars into the world, and every twelve- 
month charges his estate with at least one year's rent 
more by the birth of a child. 

Laertes and Irus are neighbors, whose way of living is; 
are an abomination to each other. Lus is moved by the 
fear of poverty, and Laertes by the shame of it. Though 
the motive of action is of so near affinity in both, and 
may be resolved into this, '*That to each of them 
poverty is the greatest of all evils, "yet are their manners 20 
very widely different. Shame of poverty makes Laertes 
launch into unnecessary equipage, vain expense, and 
lavish entertainments ; fear of poverty makes Irus allow 
himself only plain necessaries, appear without a servant, 
sell his own corn, attend his laborers, and be himself a 25 
laborer. Shame of poverty makes Laertes go every day 
a step nearer to it, and fear of poverty stks up Irus to 
make every day some further progress from it. 

These different motives produce the excesses which 

^ Of as much land as would pay off that debt. 



THE COVERLEY ECONOMY 121 

men are guilty of in the negligence of and provision for 
themselyes. Usury, stock- jobbing, extortion, and 
oppression have their seed in the dread of want; and 
vanity, riot, and prodigality, from the shame of it : But 

8 both these excesses are infinitely below the pursuit of a 
reasonable creature. After we have taken care to com- 
mand so much as is necessary for maintaining om-selves 
in the order of men suitable to our character, the care of 
superfluities is a vice no less extravagant than the neglect 

io of necessaries would have been before. 

Certain it is that they are both out* of Nature when 
she is followed with Eeason and Good Sense. It is from 
this reflection that I always read Mr. Cowley with the 
gi'eatest pleasure: His magnanimity is as much above 

15 that of other considerable men, as his understanding; 
and it is a true distinguishing spirit in the elegant author 
who published his works to dwell so much upon the 
temper of his mind and the moderation of his desires : By 
this means he has rendered his friend as amiable as 

80 famous. That state of life which bears, the face of 
poverty with Mr. Cowley's "great vulgar,"* is admirably 
described ; and it is no small satisfaction to those of the 
same turn of deshe, that he produces the authority of 
the wisest men of the best age of the world, to strengthen 

25 his opinion of the ordinary pursuits of mankind. 

It would, methinks, be no ill maxim of life, if, 
according to that ancestor of Sir Roger whom I lately 
mentioned, every man would point to himself what sum 
he would resolve not to exceed. He might by this 

30 means cheat himself into a tranquillity on this side of that 



123 R0(31ER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

expectation, or convert what he should get above it to 
nobler uses than his own pleasures or necessities. 

This temper of mind would exempt a man from an 
ignorant envy of restless men above him, and a more 
inexcusable contempt of happy men below him. This 
would be sailing by some compass, living with some 
design; but to be eternally bewildered in prospects of 
future gain, and putting on unnecessary armor against 
improbable blows of fortune, is a mechanic being, which 
has not good sense for its direction, but is carried on by ic 
a sort of acquired instinct towards things below our con- 
sideration and unworthy our esteem. 

It is possible that the tranquillity I now enjoy at Sir 
Roger's may have created in me this way of thinking, 
vvhicli is so abstracted from the common relish of the is 
wojldj but, as I am now in a pleasing arbor, surrounded 
with a beautiful landscape, I find no inclination so 
strong as to continue in these mansions, so remote from 
the ostentatious scenes of life; and am, at this present 
writing, philosopher enough to conclude, with Mr. 3C 
Cowley, — 

If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat. 
With any wish so mean as to be great, 
Continue, Heav'n, still from me to remove 
The humble blessings of that life I love. 

T. 



XIV 

Sm ROGER AND THE HUNT 
[No. 115 — Addison. Thursday, July 1^.] 

XJt sit mens sana in corpore sano.^ 

— Juvenal. 

Bodily labor is of two kinds, either that which a man 
submits to for his livelihood, or that which he undergoes 
for his pleasure. The latter of them generally changes 
the name of labor for that of exercise, but differs only 

6 from ordinary labor as it rises from another motive. 

A country life abounds in both these kinds of labor, 
and for that reason gives a man a greater stock of health, 
and consequently a more perfect enjoyment of himself, 
than any other way of life. I consider the body as a 

10 system of tubes and glands, or, to use a more rustic 
phrase, a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one 
another after so wonderful a manner as to make a proper 
engine* for the soul to work with. This description 
does not only comprehend the bowels, bones, tendons, 

jg veins, nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every 
ligature, which is a composition of fibres that are so 
many imperceptible tubes or pipes, interwoven on all 
sides with invisible glands or strainers. 

* That there may be a sound mind in a sound body. 

133 



124 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

This general idea of a human body, without consider- 
ing it in its niceties of anatomy, lets us see how absolutely 
necessary labor is for the right preservation of it. There 
must be frequent motions and agitations, to mix, digest, 
and separate the juices contained in it, as well as to clear 
and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of 
which it is composed, and to give their solid jDarts a 
more firm and lasting tone. Labor or exercise ferments 
the humors, casts them into their proper channels, 
throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret 10( 
distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in 
its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness. 

I might here mention the effects which this has upon 
all the faculties of the mind, by keeping the understand- 
ing clear, the imagination untroubled, and refining those I5i 
spirits that are necessary for the proper exertion of our 
intellectual faculties, during the present* laws of union 
between soul and body. It is to a neglect in this par- 
ticular that we must ascribe the spleen which is so fre- 
quent in men of studious and sedentary tempers, as well 20( 
as the vapors to which those of the other sex are so often 
mbject. 

Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for our 
tvell-being, nature would not have made the body so 
proper for it, by giving such an activity to the limbs and 
such a pliancy to every part as necessarily produce those 
compressions, extensions, contortions, dilations, and all 
other kinds of motions that are necessary for the preser- 
vation of such a system of tubes and glands as has been 
before mentioned. And that we might not want induce- 



SIR ROGER AND THE HUNT 125 

ments to engage us in such an exercise of the body as is 
proper for its welfare, it is so ordered that nothing valu- 
able can be procured without it. Not to mention riches 
and honor, even food and raiment are not to be come at 
5 without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brows. 
Providence furnishes materials, but expects that we 
should work them up ourselves. The earth must be 
labored before it gives its increase ; and when it is forced 
into its several products, how many hands must they 
10 pass through before they are fit for use ! Manufactures, 
trade, and agriculture naturally employ more than nine- 
teen parts of the sptcies in twenty; and as for those who 
are not obliged to labor, by the condition in which they 
are born, they are more miserable than the rest of man- 
is kind unless they indulge themselves in that voluntary 
labor which goes by the name of exercise. 

My friend Sir Roger has been an indefatigable man in 

business of this kind, and has hung several parts of his 

house with the trophies of his former labors. The walls 

20 of his great hall are covered with the horns of several 

kinds of deer that he has killed in the chase, which he 

thinks the most valuable furniture of his house, as they 

afford him frequent topics of discourse, and show that 

he has not been idle. At the lower end of the hall is a 

25 large otter's skin stuffed with hay, which his mother 

ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the knight 

looks upon with great satisfaction, because it seems he 

was but nine years old when his dog killed him. A little 

room adjoining to the hall is a kind of arsenal filled 

30 with guns of several sizes and inventions, with which the 



126 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

knight has made great havoc in the woods, and destroyed 
many thousands of pheasants, partridges, and woodcocks. 
His stable doors are patched with noses that belonged to 
foxes of the knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger 
showed me one of them, that for distinction sake has a i 
brass nail struck through it, which cost him about fif- 
teen hours' riding, carried him through half a dozen 
counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and lost above 
half his dogs. This the knight looks upon as one of the 
greatest exploits of his life. The perverse widow whom lO 
I have given some account of was the death of several 
foxes ; for Sir Roger has told me that in the course of • 
his amours he patched the western door of his stable. 
Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to 
pay for it. In proportion as his passion for the widow 15 
abated, and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting; 
but a hare is not yet safe that sits witliin ten miles of 
his house. 

There is no kind of exercise which I would so recom- 
mend to my readers of both sexes as this of riding, as 20 
there is none which so much conduces to health, and is 
every way accommodated to the body, according to the 
idea which I have given of it. Dr. Sydenham is very 
lavish in his praises ; and if the English reader would see 
the mechanical effects of it described at length, he may 25 
find them in a book published not many years since, 
under the title of "Medicina Gymnastica." 

For my own part, when I am in town, for want of these 
op]')ortunities I exercise myself an hour every morning 
upon a dumb bell that is placed in a corner of my room, 30 



SIR ROGER AND THE HUNT 127 

and pleases me the more because it does everything I 
require of it in the most profound silence. My landlady 
and her daughters are so well acquainted with my hours 
of exercise, that they never come into my room to dis- 

i turb me whilst I am ringing.* 

When I was some years younger than T am at present, 
I used to employ myself in a more laborious diversion, 
which I learned from a Latin treatise of exercises that is 
written with great erudition. It is there called the 

10 oKio^axia, or the fighting with a man's own shadow, and 
consists in the brandishing of two short sticks 
grasped in each hand, and loaden with plugs of lead at 

I either end. This opens the chest, exercises the limbs, 
and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing, without the 
blows. I could wish that several learned men would 
lay out that time which they employ in controversies and 
disputes about nothing, in this method of fighting with 
their own shadows. It might conduce very much to 
evaporate the spleen, which makes them uneasy to the 

public as well as to themselves. 

To conclude, as I am a compound of soul and body, I 
consider myself as obliged to a double scheme of duties, 
and I think I have not fulfilled the business of the day 
when I do not thus employ the one^ in labor and exer- 

5 cise, as well as the other in study and contemplation. 

L. 

» The body. 



XV 

THE HUNTING FIELD 
[No. I16.—Budgell. Friday, July IS.] 

Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron 

Taygetique canes .* 

— Virgil. 

Those who have searched into human nature, observe 
that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul as 
that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such 
an active principle in him that he will find out some- 
thing to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state 
of life he is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who 
was under close confinement in the Bastile seven years ; 
during which time he amused himself in scattering a 
few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up 
again, and placing them in different figures on the arm 
of a great chair. He often told his friends afterwards, 
that unless he had found out this piece of exercise, he 
verily believed he should have lost his senses. 

After what has been said, I need not inform my read- 
ers that Sir Roger, with whose character I hope they are 15 
at present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone 
through the whole course of those rural diversions which 

^Cithaeron calls with a great clamor, and the dogs of 
Taygetus. 

128 



THE HUNTING FIELD 129 

the country abounds in, and which seem to be extremely 
well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe 
here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. 
I have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits : He 

5 has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges 
in a season, and tired many a salmon with a line consist- 
ing but of a single hair. The constant thanks and good 
wishes of the neighborhood always attended him on 
account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes ; having* 

10 destroyed more of those vermin* in one year that it was 
thought the whole country could have produced. 
Indeed, the knight does not scruple to own, among his 
most intimate friends, that, in order to establish his 
reputation this way, he has secretly sent for gi-eat num- 

15 bers of them out of other counties, which he used to 
turn loose about the country by night, that he might the 
better signalize himself in their destruction the next day. 
His hunting horses were the finest and best managed in 
all these parts : his tenants are still full of the praises of 

20 a gray stone-horse, that unhappily staked himself several 
years since, and was buried with gi'eat solemnity in the 
orchard. 

Sir Roger, being at present too old for fox-hunting, 
to keep himself in action has disposed of his beagles and 

25 got a pack of stop-hounds. What these want in speed 
he endeavors to make amends for by the deepness of 
their mouths and the variety of their notes, which are 
suited in such manner to each other that the whole cry 
makes up a complete concert. He is so nice in this par- 

30 ticular that a gentleman having made him a present of a 



130 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

very fine hound the other day, the knight returned it by 
the servant with a great many expressions of civility, but 
desired him to tell his master that the dog he had sent 
was indeed a most excellent bass, but that at present he 
only wanted a counter-tenor. Could I believe my friend 5 
had ever read Shakespeare, I should certainly conclude 
he had taken the hint from Theseus, in the * 'Midsummer 
Night's Dream:" 

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 

So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung M 

With ears that sweep away the morning dew: 

Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls; 

Slow in pursuit, but match' d in mouths, like bells, 

Each under each : A cry more tuneable 

Was never holla' d to, nor cheer'd with horn. U 

Sir Roger is so keen at this sport that he has been out 
almost every day since I came down; and upon the chap- 
lain's oHering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed 
on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I 
was extremely pleased, as we rid along, to observe the 21 
general benevolence of all the neighborhood towards my 
friend. The farmers' sons thought themselves happy if 
they could open a gate for the good old knight as he 
passed by; which he generally requited with a nod or a 
smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers and uncles. 

After we had rid about a mile from home, we came 
upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. 
They had done so for some time, when, as I was at a 
little distance from the rest of the company, I saw a hare 
pop out from a small furze-brake almost under my 



THE HUNTING FIELD 131 

horse's feet. I marked the way she took, which I 
endeavored to make the company sensible of by extend- 
ing my arm; but to no purpose, till Sir Eoger, who 
knows that none of my extraordinary motions are insig- 

5 nificant, rode up to me, and asked me if puss was gone 
that way. Upon my answering "Yes," he immediately 
called in the dogs and put them upon the scent. As 
they were going off, I heard one of the country fellows 
muttering to his companion that 'twas a wonder they 

16 had not lost all their sport, for want of the silent gentle- 
man's crying, *' Stole aAvay!" 

This, with my aversion to leaping hedges, made me 
withdraw to a rising ground, from whence I could have 
the picture of the whole chase, without the fatigue of 

15 keeping in with the hounds. The hare immediately 
threw them above a mile behind her ; but I was pleased 
to find that instead of running straight forwards, or, in 
hunter's language, *' flying the country," as I was afraid 
she might have done, she wheeled about, and described 

20 a sort of circle round the hill where I had taken my 
station, in such manner as gave me a very distinct view 
of the sport. I could see her first pass by, and the dogs 
som.e time afterwards unravelling the whole track she 
had made, and following her through all her doubles, 

25 I was at the same time delighted in observing that defer- 
ence which the rest of the pack paid to each particular 
hound, according to the character he had acquired 
amongst them : If they were at fault, and an old hound 
of reputation opened but once, he was immediately 

30 followed by the whole cry; while a raw dog, or one who 



132 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

was a noted liar, might have yelped his heart out, with- 
out being taken notice of. 

The hare now, after having squatted two or three 
times, and been put up again as often, came still nearer 
to the place where she was at first started. The dogs 5 
pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly 
knight, who rode upon a white gelding, encompassed by 
his tenants and servants, and cheering his hounds with 
ail the gaiety of five-and-twenty. One of the sportsmen 
rode up to me, and told me that he was sure the chase 19 
was almost at an end, because the old dogs, which had 
hitherto lain behind, now headed the pack. The fellow 
was in the right. Our hare took a large field just under 
us, followed by the full cry "in view." I must confess 
the brightness of the weather, the cheerfulness of every- 15 
thing around me, the chiding of the hounds, which was 
returned upon us in a double echo from two neighbor- 
ing hills, Avitli the hollowing of the sportsmen, and the 
sounding of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most lively 
pleasure, which I freely indulged because I was sure it 20 
was innocent. If I was under any concern, it was on 
the account of the poor hare, that was now quite spent, 
and almost within the reach of her enemies; when the 
huntsman, getting forward, threw down his pole before 
the dogs. They were now within eight yards of that 25 
game which they had been pursuing for almost as many 
hours; yet, on the signal before mentioned, they all 
made a sudden stand, and though they continued open- 
ing as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass 
beyond the pole. At the same time Sir Roger rode for- 30 



THE HUNTING FIELD 133 

ward, and, alighting, took up the hare in his arms, 
which he soon after delivered to one of his servants, with 
an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in his 
Great Orchard, where it seems he has several of these 
5 prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable 
captivity. I was highly pleased to see the discipline of 
the pack, and the good-nature of the knight, who could 
not find in his heart to murder a creature that had 
given him so much diversion. 

10 As we were returning home I remembered that 
Monsieur Pascal, in his most excellent discourse on the 
"Misery of Man," tells us that all our endeavors after 
greatness proceed from nothing but a desire of being 
surrounded by a multitude of persons and affairs that 

15 may hinder us from looking into ourselves, which is a 
view we cannot bear. He afterwards goes on to show 
that our love of sports comes from the same reason, and 
is particularly severe upon hunting. *'What," says he, 
"unless it be to drown thought, can make men throw 

20 away so much time and pains upon a silly animal, which 
they might buy cheaper in the market?" The foregoing 
reflection is certainly just when a man suffers his whole 
mind to be drawn into his sports, and altogether loses 
himself in the woods ; but does not affect those who pro- 

25 pose a far more laudable end from this exercise,— I mean, 
the preservation of health, and keeping all the organs of 
the soul in a condition to execute her orders. Had 
that incomparable person, whom I last quoted, been a 
little more indulgent to himself in this point, the world 

30 might probably have enjoyed him much longer j whereas 



134 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

through too great an application to his studies in his 
youth, he contracted that ill habit of body which, after 
a tedious sickness, carried him off in the fortieth 3'ear 
of his age; and the whole history we have of his life till 
that time, is but one continued account of the behavior 5 
of a noble soul struggling under innumerable pains and 
distempers. 

For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a week dur- 
ing my stay with Sir Roger; and shall prescribe the 
moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends, lo 
as the best kind of physic for mending a bad constitu- 
tion and preserving a good one. 

I cannot do this better than in the following lines out 
of Mr. Dry den: 

The first physicians by debauch were made ; 15 

Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade. 

By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food ; 

Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood; 

But we their sons, a pamper'd race of men, 

Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. 20 

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 

Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 

The wjse for cure on exercise depend : 

God never made his work for man to mend. 

X. 



XVI 



MOLL* WHITE 
[Xfo 117— Addison. Saturday, July I4.] 

Ipsi sibi somnia fingunt.^ 

— Virgil. 

There are some opinions in which a man should stand 
neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the 
other. Such a hovering faith as this, which refuses to 
settle upon any determination, is absolutely necessary in 

5 a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. 
When the arguments press equally on both sides, in 
matters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to 
give up ourselves to neither. 

It is with this temper of mind that I consider the sub- 

10 ject of witchcraft. When I hear the relations that are 
made from all parts of the world, not only from Norway 
and Lapland, from the East and West Indies, but from 
every particular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear 
thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce* 

15 with evil spirits as that which we express by the name of 
witchcraft. But when I consider that the ignorant and 
credulous parts of the world abound most in these rela- 
tions, and that the persons among us who are supposed 
to engage in such an infernal commerce are people of a 

* They invent dreams for themselves. 

135 



136 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

weak understanding and crazed imagination, and at the 
same time reflect upon the many impostures and 
delusions of this nature that have been detected in all 
ages, I endeavor to suspend my belief till I hear more 
certain accounts than any which have yet come to my 5 
knowledge. In short, when I consider the question 
whether there are such persons in the world as those we 
call witches, my mind is divided between the two oppo- 
site opinions; or rather (to speak my thoughts freely), I 
believe in general that there is, and has been, such a ifl 
thing as witchcraft ; but at the same time can give no 
credit to any particular instance of it. 

I am engaged in this speculation by some occurrences 
that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader 
an account of at large. As I was walking with my i5 
friend Sir Roger by the side of one of his woods, an old 
woman applied herself to me for my charity. Her 
dress and figure put me in mind of the following 
description in Otway : 

In a close lane as I pursued my journey, 20 

I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double, 

Picking diy sticks, and mumbling to herself. 

Her eyes with scalding rheum were galPd and red; 

Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seem'd wither'd; 

And on her crooked shoulders had she wrajDp'd 25 

The tatter' d remnants of an old striped hanging, 

Which served to keep her carcase from the cold: 

So there was nothing of a piece about her. 

Her lower weeds* were all o'er coarsely patch'd 

With diff'rent color' d rags, black, red, white, yellow, 30 

And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness. 



MOLL WHITE 137 

As I was musing on this description, and comparing 
it with the object before me, the knight told me that 
this very old woman had the reputation of a witch all 
over the country, that her lips were observed to be 

5 always in motion, and that there was not a switch about 
her house which her neighbors did not believe had 
carried her several hundi'edsof miles. If she chanced to 
stumble, they always found sticks or straws that lay in 
the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mis- 

10 take at church, and cried Amen in a wrong place, they 
never failed to conclude that she was saying her prayers 
backwards. There was not a maid in the parish that 
would take a pin of her, though she would offer a bag 
of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll White, 

15 and has made the country ring with several imaginary 
exploits which are palmed upon her. If the dairy maid 
does not make her butter come so soon as she should 
have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a 
horse sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his 

20 back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the 
hounds, the huntsman curses Moll White. *'Nay," 
(says Sir Roger), "I have known the master of the 
pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to 
see if Moll White had been out that morning." 

25 This account raised my curiosity so far that I begged 
my friend Sir Roger to go with me into her hovel, which 
stood in a solitary corner under the side of the wood. 
Upon our first entering. Sir Roger winked to me, and 
pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, 

30 upon looking that way, I found to be an old broomstaff. 



138 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take 
notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, 
which, as the old knight told me, lay under as bad a 
report as Moll White herself; for besides that Moll is 
said often to accompany her in the same shape, the cat 5 
is reported to have spoken twice or thrice in her life, 
and to have played several pranks above the capacity of 
an ordinary cat. 

I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so 
much wretchedness and disgi'ace, but at the same time 10 
could not forbear smiling to hear Sir Roger, who is a 
little puzzled about the old woman, advising her, as a 
justice of peace, to avoid all communication with the 
devil, and never to hurt any of her neighbor's cattle. 
We concluded our visit with a bounty, which was very 15 
acceptable. 

In our return home, Sir Roger told me that old Moll 
had been often brought before him for making children 
spit pins, and giving maids the nightmare; and that the 
country people would be tossing her into a pond and 20 
trying experiments with her every day, if it was* not for 
him and his chaplain. 

I have since found, upon inquiry, that Sir Roger was 
several times staggered with the reports that had been 
brought him concerning this old woman, and would fre- 25 
quently have bound her over to the county sessions had 
not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the 
contrary. 

I have been the more particular in this account because 
I heai' there is scarce a village in England that has not a 30 



MOLL WHITE 139 

Moll White in it. When an old woman begins to dote, 
and gi'ow chargeable to a parish, she is generally tnrned 
into a witch, and fills the whole country with extrava- 
gant fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying 
di'pams. In the mean time the jDOor wi'etch that is the 
innocent occasion of so many evils begins to be frighted 
at herself, and sometimes confesses secret commerce and 
familiarities that her imagination forms in a delirious old 
age. This frequently cuts off charity from the greatest 
objects of compassion, and inspires people with a malev- 
olence towards those poor, decrepit parts of our species 
in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity and 
dotage. L. 



XVII 

THE WOOING 
[No. 118. —Steele. Monday, July 16.] 

Haeret lateri lethalis arundo.^ 

— Virgil. 

This agreeable seat is surrounded with so many 
pleasing walks, which are struck out of a wood in the 
midst of which the house stands, that one can hardly 
ever be weary of rambling from one labyrinth of delight 
to another. To one used to live in a city, the charms 5^ 
of the country are so exquisite that the mind is lost in a 
certain transport which raises us above ordinary life, and 
yet is not strong enough to be inconsistent with tran- 
quillity. This state of mind was I in, ravished with the 
murmur of waters, the whisper of breezes, the singing lo 
of birds; and whether I looked up to the heavens, down 
on the earth, or turned on the prospects around me, 
still struck with new sense of pleasure; when I found by 
the voice of my friend, who walked by me, that we had 
insensibly strolled into the grove sacred to the widow. i5 
"This woman," says he, "is of all others the most 
unintelligible ; she either designs to marry, or she does 
not. What is the most perplexing of all is, that she 

^ The deadly shaft is fixed in his side. 

140 



THE WOOING 14:1 

doth not either* say to her lovers she has any resohicion 
against that condition of life in general, or that she 
banishes them; bnt, conscions of her own merit, she per- 
mits their addresses without fear of any ill consequence, 

6 or want of respect, from their rage or despair. She has 
that in her aspect against which it is impossible to 
offend. A man whose thoughts are constantly bent 
upon so agreeable an object must be excused if the 
ordinary occurrences in conversation are below his atten- 

tion. I call her, indeed, perverse, but, alas! why do I 
call her so? Because her superior merit is such that I 
cannot approach her without awe, that my heart is 
checked by too much esteem; I am ahgrj that her 
charms are not more accessible, that I am more inclined 

5 to worship than salute her : How often have I wished her 
unhappy that I might have an opportunity of serving 
her? and how often troubled in that very imagination, 
at giving her the pain of being obliged? Well, I have 
led a miserable life in secret upon her account; but 

!0 fancy she would have condescended to have some regard 
for me if it had not been for that watchful animal, her 
confidante. 

"Of all persons under the sun" (continued he, calling 
me by my name), "be sure to set a mark upon confi- 

sdantes; they are of all people the most impertinent. 
What is most pleasant to observe in them is that they 
assume to themselves the merit of the persons whom 
they have in their custody. Orestilla is a great fortune,* 
and in wonderful danger of surprises, therefore full of 

» suspicions of the least indifferent thing, particularly 



142 EOGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

careful of new acquaintance, and of growing too familiar 
with the old. Tliemista, lier favorite woman, is every 
whit as careful of whom she speaks to and what she says. 
Let the ward be a beauty, her confidante shall treat you 
with an air of distance ; let her be a fortune, and she i 
assumes the suspicious behavior of her friend and 
patroness. Thus it is that very many of our unmarried 
women of distinction are to all intents and purposes 
married, except the consideration of different sexes. 
They are directly under the conduct of their whisperer, : 
and think they are in a state of freedom while they can 
prate with one of these attendants of all men in general 
and still avoid the man they most like. You do not see 
one heiress in a hundred whose fate does not turn upon 
this circumstance of choosing a confidante. Thus it is : 
that the lady is addressed to, presented, and flattered, 
only by proxy, in her woman. In my case, how is it 
possible that — " 

Sir Eoger was proceeding in his harangue, when we 
heard the voice of one speaking very importunately, and i 
repeating these words, "What, not one smile?" We 
followed the sound till we came to a close thicket, on the 
other side of which we saw a young woman sitting as it ! 
were in a personated sullenness just over a transparent 
fountain. Opposite to her stood Mr. William, Sir 5i 
Roger's master of the game. The knight whispered me, 
"Hist, these are lovers." The huntsman, looking 
earnestly at the shadow of the young maiden in the 
stream: "0 thou dear picture, if thou couldst remain 
there in the absence of that fair creature, whom you rep- i 



THE WOOING 143 

resent in tlie water, how willingly could I stand here 
satisfied for ever, without troubling my dear Betty her- 
self with any mention of her unfortunate William, whom 
she is angry with : But alas ! when she pleases to be 

5 gone, thou wilt also vanish — yet let me talk to thee 
while thou dost stay. Tell my clearest Betty thou dost 
not more depend upon her than does her William. Her 
absence will make away with me as well as thee. If she 
offers to remove thee, I'll jump into these waves to lay 

10 hold on thee ; her herself, her own dear person, I must 
never embrace again. Still do you hear me without one 
smile? — it is too much to bear. ' ' He had no sooner spoke 
these words but he made an offer of throwing himself into 
the water ; at which his mistress started up, and at the 

15 next instant he jumped across the fountain and met her 
in an embrace. She, half recovering from her fright, 
said in the most charming voice imaginable, and with a 
tone of complaint, "I thought how well you would drown 
yourself. No, no, you won't drown yourself till you 

90 have taken your leave of Susan llolliday." The hunts- 
man, with a tenderness that spoke the most passionate 
love, and with his cheek close to hers, whispered the 
softest vows of fidelity in her ear, and cried, ''Don't, my 
dear, believe a \\^ord Kate Willow says ; she is spiteful 

25 and makes stories, because she loves to hear me talk to 
herself for your sake." 

"Look you there," quoth Sir Roger, "do jou see 
there, all mischief comes fi'om confidantes! But let 
us not interrupt them; the maid is honest, and the man 

30 dare not be otherwise, for he knows T loved her father : 



144 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

I will interpose in this matter, and hasten the wedding. 
Kate Willow is a witty, mischievous wench in the 
neighborhood, who was a beauty ; and makes me hope I 
«hall see the perverse widow in her condition.^ She 
was so flippant with her answers to all the honest fellows 5: 
that came near her, and so very vain of her beauty, that 
she has valued herself upon her charms till they are 
ceased. She therefore now makes it her business to pre- 
vent other young women from being more discreet than 
she was herself: However, the saucy thing said the la 
other day well enough, 'Sir Roger and I must make a 
match, for we are both despised by those we loved;* 
The hussy has a great deal of power wherever she 
comes, and has her share of cunning. 

*' However, when I reflect upon this woman,* I do la 
not know whether in the main I am the worse for hav- 
ing loved her : Whenever she is recalled to my imagina- 
tion my youth returns, and I feel a forgotten warmth in 
my veins. This affliction in my life has streaked all 
my conduct with a softness of which I should otherwise ai 
have been incapable. It is perhaps, to this dear image 
in my heart owing, that I am apt to relent, that I easily 
forgive, and that many desirable things are grown into 
my temper which I should not have arrived at by better 
motives than the thought of being one day hers. I am si 
pretty well satisfied such a passion as I have had is never 
well cured ; and between you and me, I am often apt to 
imagine it has had some whimsical eifect upon my 

^ Sir Roger implies that Kate Willow has lost her beauty 
and her charms. 



THE WOOING 145 

brain : For I frequently find that in my most serious dis- 
course I let fall some comical familiarity of speech or 
odd phrase that makes the company laugh ; however, I 
cannot but allow she is a most excellent woman. When 

5 she is in the country, I warrant she does not run into 
dairies, but reads upon the nature of plants; but has a 
glass hive, and comes into the garden out of books to see 
them work, and observe the policies of their common- 
wealth. She understands everything. I'd give ten 

10 pounds to hear her argue with my friend Sir Andrew 
Freeport about trade. No, no; for all she looks so 
innocent, as it were, take my word for it she is no fool." 

T. 



XVIII 

THE POLITE WORLD 
[No, 119.— Addison. Tuesday, July 17.] 

Urbem quam dicunt Roiiiam, Meliboee, putavi 

Stultiis ego huic nostrae similem .' 

— Virgil 

The first and most obvious reflections wliich arise in 
a man who changes the city for the country, are upon 
the different manners of the people whom he meets with 
in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do 
not mean morals, but behavior and good breeding as 
they show themselves in the town and in the country. 

And here, in the first place, I must observe a very 
great revolution that has happened in this article of good 
breeding. Several obliging deferences, condescensions, 
and submissions, with many outward forms and cere- 
monies that accompany them, were first of all brought 
up among the politer part of mankind, who lived in 
courts and cities, and distinguished themselves from the 
rustic i^art of the species (who on all occasions acted 
bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual complaisance 
and intercourse of civilities. These forms of conversa- 
tion by degrees multiplied and grew troublesome; the 

^ The city, Meliboeus, that men call Rome, I foolishly- 
thought like this place of ours. 

146 



THE POLITE WORLD 147 

modish Avorld found too great a constraint in them, and 
have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversa- 
tion, like the Romish religion, was so encumbered with 
show and ceremony that it stood in need of a reforma- 

6 tion to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its 
natural good sense and beauty. At present, therefore, 
an unconstrained carriage, and a certain openness of 
behavior are the height of good breeding. The fashion- 
able world is grown free and easy ; our manners sit more 

10 loose upon us : Nothing is so modish as an agreeable 
negligence. In a word, good breeding shows itself most 
where, to an ordinary eye, it appears the least. 

If after this we look on the people of mode in the 
country, we find in them the manners of the last age. 

15 They have no sooner fetched themselves up to the fash- 
ion of the polite world but the town has dropped them, 
and are nearer to the fii'st state of nature than to those 
refinements which formerly reigned in the court and still 
prevail in the country. One may now know a man that 

20 never conversed* in the world by his excess of good 
breeding. A polite country squire shall* make you as 
many bows in half an hour as would serve a courtier for 
a week. There is infinitely more to do about place and 
precedency in a meeting of justices' wives than in an 

25 assembly of duchesses. 

This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of 
my temper, who generally take the chair that is next 
me, and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as 
chance directs. I have known my friend Sir Roger's 

50 dinner almost cold before the company could adjust the 



148 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down; and have 
heartily pitied my old friend, Avhen I have seen him 
forced to pick and cull his guests, as they sat at the sev- 
eral parts of his table, that he might drink their healths 
according to their respective ranks and qualities. Hon- 
est Will Wimble, who I should have thought had been 
altogether uninfected with ceremony, gives me abun- 
dance of trouble in this particular. Though he has been 
fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at 
dinner till I am served. When we are going out of the i 
hall, he runs behind me; and last night, as we were 
walking in the fields, stopped short at a stile till I came 
up to it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, 
told me, with a serious smile, that, sure, I believed they 
had no manners in the country. 

There has happened another revolution in the point of 
good breeding, which relates to the conversation among 
men of mode, and which I cannot but look upon as very 
extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first dis- 
tinctions of a well-bred man to express everything that 
had the most remote appearance of being obscene in 
modest terms and distant phrases; whilst the clown, 
who had no such delicacy of conception and expression, 
clothed his ideas in those plain, homely terms that are 
the most obvious and natural. This kind of good man- 
ners was perhaps carried to an excess, so as to make con- 
versation too stiff, formal, and precise; for which reason 
(as hypocrisy in one age is generally succeeded by 
atheism in another) conversation is* in a great measure 
relapsed into the first extreme ; so that at present several 



THE POLITE WORLD 149 

of our men of the town, and particularly those who have 
been polished in France, make use of the most coarse, 
uncivilized words in our language, and utter themselves 
often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear. 

This infamous piece of good breeding which reigns 
among the coxcombs of the town has not yet made its 
way into the country ; and as it is impossible for such an 
irrational way of conversation to last long among a people 
that make any profession of religion, or show of 
» modesty, -if the country gentlemen get into it they will 
certainly be left in the lurch. Their good breeding will 
come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel 
of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking 
together like men of wit and pleasure. 

As the two points of good breeding which I have 
hitherto insisted upon regard behavior and conversation, 
there is a third which turns upon dress. In this, too, 
the country are very much behindhand. The rural 
beaus are not yet got out of the fashion that took place 
> at the time of the Revolution, but ride about the country 
in red coats and laced hats, while the women in many 
parts are still trying to outvie one another in the height 
of their head-dresses. 

But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western 
circuit, having promised to give me an account of the 
several modes and fashions that prevail in the different 
parts of the nation through which he passes, I shall 
defer the enlarging upon this last topic till I have 
received a letter from him, which I expect every post. 

L. 



XIX 

THE COVERLEY POULTRY 
[No. 120.— Addison. Wednesday, July 18.] 

— — Equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 
Ingenium^ . 



Jovis omnia plena. ^ 

— Virgil. 

My friend Sir Eoger is very often merry with me upon 
my passing so much of my time among his poultry. 
He has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird's 
nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together 
near an hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I 
am personally acquainted with every fowl about his 
house, calls such a particular cock my favorite, and 
frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more 
of my company than himself. 

I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those lo^l 
speculations of nature which are to be made in a coun- 
try life ; and as my reading has very much lain among 
books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting 
upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met 
with in authors, and comparing them with what falls 13' 
under my own observation : the arguments for Provi- 

* Indeed, I believe it because they have skill from the gods. 

* All things are full of Jove. 

150 



THE COVERLEY POULTRY 151 

dence drawn from the natural history of animals being, 
in my opinion, demonstrative. 

The make of every kind of animal is different from 
that of every other kind; and yet there is not the least 
tm-n in the muscles or twist in the fibres of any one which 
does not render them more proper for that particular 
animaPs way of life than any other cast or texture of 
them would have been. . . . 

It is astonishing to consider the different degrees of 

10 care that descend from the parent to the young, so far as 
is absolutely necessary for the leaving a posterity. Some 
creatures cast their eggs as chance directs them, and 
think of them no farther, as insects and several kinds of 
fish; others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to 

15 deposit them in, and there leave them, as the serpent, 
the crocodile, and ostrich ; others hatch their eggs and 
tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself. 

What can we call the principle which directs every 
different kind of bird to observe a particular plan in the 

20 structure of its nest, and directs all of the same species 
to work after the same model? It cannot be imitation ; 
for though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let 
it see any of the works of its own kiud, the nest it 
makes shall be the same, to the la3nng of a stick, with 

25 all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be 
reason; for were animals indued with it to as great a 
degree as man, their buildings would be as different as 
ours, according to the different conveniencies that they 
would propose to themselves. 

30 Is it not remarkable that the same temper of weather 



152 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

which raises this genial warmth in animals should cover 
the trees with leaves, and the fields with grass, for their 
security and concealment, and produce such infinite 
swarms of insects for the support and sustenance of their 
respective broods? 

Is it not wonderful that the love of the parent should 
be so violent while it lasts, and that it should last no 
longer than is necessary for the preservation of the 
young? . . . 

But notwithstanding this natural love in brutes is loi 
much more violent and intense than in rational creatures, 
Providence has taken care that it should be no longer 
troublesome to the parent than it is useful to the young ; 
for so soon as the wants of the latter cease, the mother 
withdraws her fondness, and leaves them to provide for is^ 
themselves : And what is a very remarkable circumstance 
in this part of instinct, we find that the love of the par- 
ent may be lengthened out beyond its usual time, if the 
preservation of the species requires it, as we may see in 
birds that drive away their young as soon as they are 20 
able to get their livelihood, but continue to feed them if 
they are tied to the nest, or confined within a cage, or 
by any other means appear to be out of a condition of 
supplying their own necessities. 

This natural love is not observed in animals to ascend 25 
from the young to the parent, which is not at all neces- 
sary for the continuance of the species : Nor indeed in 
reasonable creatures does it rise in any proportion, as it 
spreads itself downward; for in all family affection, we 
find protection granted and favors bestowed, are greater 30 



THE COVERLEY POULTRY 153 

motives to love and tenderness, than safety, benefits, or 
life received. 

One wonld wonder to hear sceptical men disputing for 
the reason of animals, and telling ns it is only our pride 
5 and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that 
faculty. 

Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life ; whereas 
the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in 
what immediately regards his own preservation or the 

10 continuance of his species. Animals in their generation 
are wiser than the sons of men, but their wisdom is con- 
fined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow 
compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find 
him wholly deprived of understanding. To use an 

15 instance that comes often under observation : 

With what caution does the hen provide herself a nesb 
in places unfrequented, and free from noise and disturb- 
ance! When she has laid her eggs in such a manner 
that she can cover them, what care does she take in 

20 turning them frequently, that all parts may partake of 
the vital warmth! When she leaves them, to provide 
for her necessary sustenance, how punctually does she 
return before they have time to cool and become incapa- 
ble of producing an animal! In the summer you see 

25 her giving herself greater freedoms, and quitting her 
care for above two hours together, but in winter, when 
the rigor of the season would chill the principles of life 
and destroy the young one, she grows more assiduous in 
her attendance, and stays away but half the time. 

JO When the birth approaches, with how much nicety and 



154 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

attention does she help the chick to break its prison! 
not to take notice of her covering it from the injuries of 
tlie weather, providing it proper nourishment, and teach- 
ing it to help itself ; nor to mention her forsaking the 
nest, if after the usual time of reckoning the young one 5 
does not make its appearance. A chj^mical operation 
could not be followed with greater art or diligence than 
is seen in the hatching of a chick; though there are 
many other birds that show an infinitely greater sagacity 
in all the forementioned particulars. lo 

But at the same time the hen, that has all this seeming 
ingenuity (which is indeed absolutely necessary for the 
proi3agation of the species), considered in other respects, 
is without the least glimmerings of thought or common- 
sense. She mistakes a j^iece of chalk for an egg, and 15 
sits upon it in the same manner : She is insensible of any 
increase or diminution in the number of those she lays ; 
she does not distinguish between her own and those of 
another species ; and when the birth appears of never so 
different a bird, will cherish it for her own. In all these 20 
circumstances which do not carry an immediate regard 
to the subsistence of herself or her species, she is a very 
idiot. 

There is not, in my opiiiiou, anything more mysterious 
in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus 35 
rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It 
cannot be accounted for by any properties in matter, and 
at the same time works after so odd a manner that one 
cannot think it the faculty of an intellectual being. For 
my o'n n part, I look upon it as upon the principle of so 



THE COVERLEY POULTRY 155 

gi'avitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by 
any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, 
nor from any laws of mechanism, but, according to the 
best notions of the greatest philosophers, is an immediate 
impression from the first Mover and the divine Energy 
acting in the creatures. L. 



XX 

SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES 
[No. 122.— Addison. Friday, July 20.] 

Comes jucundus in via pro vehiculo est.* 

— Piiblius Syrus. 

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches 
of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the 
world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought 
to be entirely neglected ; but otherwise there cannot be a 
gi'eater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see those 5 
approbations which it gives itself seconded by the 
applauses of the public. A man is more sure of his 
conduct when the verdict which he passes upon his own 
behavior is thus warranted and confu-med by the 
opinion of all that know him. 10 

My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is not 
only at peace within himself but beloved and esteemed by 
all about him. He receives a suitable tribute for his 
universal benevolence to mankind in the returns of 
affection and good-will which are paid him by every one 15 
that lives within his neighborhood. I lately met with 
two or three odd instances of that general respect which 
is shown to the good old knight. He would needs carry 
Will Wimble and myself with him to the county assizes. 
As we were upon the road, Will Wimble joined a couple 20 

* Pleasant company on the way is as good as a carriage. 

156 



SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES 157 

of plain men who rid before us, and conversed with 
them for some time; during which my friend Sir Roger 
acquainted me with their characters. 

"The first of them," says he, "that has a spaniel by 

5 his side, is a yeoman of about an hundred pounds a year, 
an honest man : He is just within the Game Act, and 
qualified to kill an hare or a pheasant. He knocks 
down a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a week ; and 
by that means lives much cheaper than those who have 

to not so good an estate as himself. He would be a good 
neighbor if he did not destroy so many partridges : in 
short, he is a very sensible man. shoots flying, and has 
been several times foreman of the petty jury. 

"The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, 

15 a fellow famous for taking the law of everybody. There 
is not one in the town where he lives that he has not sued 
at a quarter sessions. The rogue had once the impudence 
to go to law with the widow. His head is full of costs, 
damages, and ejectments: He plagued a couple of 

20 honest gentlemen so* long for a trespass in breaking one 
of his hedges, till he was forced to sell the ground it 
enclosed to defray the charges of the prosecution : His 
father left him fourscore pounds a year, but he has cast 
and been cast so often that he is not now worth thirty. 

25 I suppose he is going upon the old business of the 
willow tree."^ 

As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom 
Touchy,Will Wimble and his two companions stopped 

^ Old to Sir Roger, but probably never before mentioned to 
the Spectator. 



158 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

short till we came up to them. After having paid their 
respects to Sir Roger, Will told him that Mr. Touchy and 
he must appeal to him upon a dispute that arose between 
them. Will, it seems, had been giving his fellow-traveller 
an account of his angling one day in such a hole ; when s 
Tom Touchy, instead of hearing out his story, told him 
that Mr. Such an one, if he pleased, might take the 
law of him for fishing in that part of the river. My 
friend Sir Roger heard them both, upon a round trot; 
and, after having paused some time, told them, with lo^ 
the air of a man who would not give his judgment 
rashly, that much might be said on both sides. They 
were neither of them dissatisfied with the knight's 
determination, because neither of them found himself in 
the wrong by it. Upon which we made the best of our i5i 
way to the assizes. 

The court was sat before Sir Roger came; but not- 
withstanding all the justices had taken their places upon 
the bench, they made room for the old knight at the 
head of them; who, for his reputation in the country, 20 
took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear that he was 
glad his lordship had met with so much good weather 
in his circuit. I was listening to the proceeding of the 
court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with 
that great appearance and solemnity which so properly 25' 
accompanies such a public administration of our laws, 
when, after about an hour s sitting, I observed to my 
great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir 
Koger was getting up to speak. I was in some pain for 
him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two or three 30 



SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES 159 

sentences, witli a look of much business and great 
intrepidity. 

Upon his first rising the court was hushed, and a 
general whisper ran among the country people that Sir 

5 Roger was up. The speech he made was so little to the 
purpose that I shall not trouble my readers with an 
account of it ; and I believe was not so much designed 
by the knight himself to inform the court, as to give him 
a figure in my eye, and keep up his credit in the country. 

10 I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see 
the gentlemen of the country gathering about my old 
friend, and striving who should compliment him most ; 
at the same time that the ordinary people gazed upon 
him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage, that 

15 was not afraid to speak to the judge. 

In our return home we met with a very odd accident, 
which I cannot forbear relating, because it shows how 
desirous all who know Sir Roger are of giving him 
marks of their esteem. When we were arrived upon the 

£0 verge of his estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest 
ourselves and our horses. The man of the house had, 
it seems, been formerly a servant in the knight's 
family; and, to do honor to his old master, had some 
time since, unknown to Sir Roger, pnt him up in a 

'^5 sign-post before the door ; so that the knight's head had 
hung out upon the road about a week before he himself 
knew anything of the matter. As soon as Sir Roger 
was acquainted with it, finding that his servant's 
indiscretion proceeded wholly from aifection and good 

^0 will, he only told him that he had made him too high a 



160 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

compliment ; and when the fellow seemed to think that 
could hardly be, added, with a more decisive look, that 
it was too great an honor for any man under a duke ; 
but told him at the same time that it might be altered 
with a very few touches, and that he himself would be 5 
at the charge of it. Accordingly they got a painter, by 
the knight's directions, to add a pair of whiskers to the 
face, and by a little aggravation to the features to 
change it into the Saracen's Head. T should not have 
known this story had not the innkeeper, upon Sir Soger's lOi 
alighting, told him in my hearing that his honor's head 
was brought back last night with the alterations that he 
had ordered to be made in it. Upon this, my friend, 
with his usual cheerfulness, related the particulars above 
mentioned, and ordered the head to be brought into the is 
room. I could not forbear discovering* gi'eater expres- 
sions of mirth than ordinary upon the appearance of this 
monstrous face, under which, notwithstanding it was 
made to frown and stare in a most extraordinary manner, 
I could still discover a distant resemblance of my old so 
friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired me 
to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to 
know him in that disguise. I at first kept my usual 
silence; but upon the knight's conjuring me to tell him 
whether it was not still more like himself than a 
Saracen, I composed my countenance in the best manner I 
could, and replied that much might be said on both sides. 
These several adventures, with the knight's behavior 
in them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with 
in any of my travels. L. 



XXI 

FLORIO AND LEONILLA 
[No. 123. — Addison. Saturday, July 21.1 

Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam 
Rectique cultus pectora roborant ; 

Utcunque defecere mores, 

Dedecorant bene nata ciilpae.^ 

— Horace. 

As I was yesterday taking the air with my friend Sir 
Roger, we were met by a fresh -colored, ruddy young 
man, who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants 
behind him. Upon my inquiry who he was. Sir Roger 

5 told me that he was a young gentleman of a considerable 
estate, who had been educated by a tender mother that 
lived not many miles from the place where we were. She 
is a very good lady, says my friend, but took so much 
care of her son*s health that she has made him good for 

10 nothing. She quickly found that reading was bad for 
his eyes, and that writing made his head ache. He was 

^ Instruction a new force imparts 
To faculties inherited, 
And, well directed, strengthens hearts 

In virtue's ways and valor's tread; 
But when bad morals bring bad fame, 
Good birth but aggravates the shame. 

— Sargent. 

161 



162 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

let loose among the woods as soon as he was able to ride 
on horseback, or to carry a gun upon his shoulder. To 
be brief, I found by my friend's account of him, 
that he had got a great stock of health, but nothing 
else ; and that, if it were a man's business only to live, 5 
there would not be a more accomplished young fellow in 
the whole county. 

The truth of it is, since my residing in these parts I have 
seen and heard innumerable instances of young heirs and 
elder brothers who — either from their own reflecting io( 
upon the estates they are born to, and therefore thinking 
all other accomplishments unnecessary, or from hearing 
these notions frequently inculcated to them by the 
flattery of their servants and domestics, or from the same 
foolish thought prevailing in those who have the care of la 
their education — are of no manner of use but to keep 
up their families, and transmit their lands and houses 
in a line to posterity. 

This makes me often think on a story 1 have heard of 
two friends, which I shall give my reader at large under soj 
feigned names. The moral of it may, I hope, be useful, 
though there are some circumstances which make it 
rather appear like a novel* than a true story. 

Eudoxus and Leontine began the world with small 
estates. They were both of them men of good sense and 25j 
great virtue. They prosecuted their studies together 
in their earlier years, and entered into such a friendship 
as lasted to the end of their lives. Eudoxus, at his first 
setting out in the world, threw himself into a court, 
where by his natural endowments and his acquired 



FLORIO AND LEONILLA 163 

abilities lie made his way from one post to another, till 
at length he had raised a very considerable fortune. Leon- 
tine, on the contrary, sought all opportunities of improv- 
ing his mind by study, conversation, and travel. He 
was not only acquainted with all the sciences, but with 
the most eminent professors of them throughout Europe. 
He knew perfectly well the interests of its princes, with 
the cnstoms and fashions of their courts, and could 
scarce meet with the name of an extraordinary person in 

10 the Gazette whom he had not either talked to or seen. In 
short, he had so well mixed and digested his knowledge 
of men and books, that he made one of the most accom- 
plished persons of his age. During the whole course of 
his studies and travels he kept up a punctual corre- 

15 spondence with Eudoxus, who often made himself 
acceptable to the principal men about court by the intel- 
ligence which he received from Leontine. When they 
were both turned of forty (an age in which according to 
Mr. Cowley, "there is no dallying with life") they 

20 determined, pursuant to the resolution they had taken 
in the beginning of their lives, to retire, and pass the 
remainder of their days in the country. In order to 
this, they both of them married much about the same 
time. Leontine, with his own and his wife's fortune, 

25 bought a farm of three hundred a year, which lay within 
the neighborhood of his friend Eudoxus, who had 
purchased an estate of as many thousands. They were 
both of them fathers about the same time, Eudoxus 
having a son born to him, and Leontine a daughter; but, 

JO to the unspeakable grief of the latter, his young wife, 



164 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

in whom all his happiness was wrapt up, died in a few days 
after the birth of her daughter. His affliction would 
have been insupportable had not he been comforted by 
the daily visits and conversations of his friend. As 
they were one day talking together with their usual s! 
intimacy, Leontine, considering how incapable he was 
of giving his daughter a proper education in his own 
house, and Eudoxus reflecting on the ordinary behavior 
of a son who knows himself to be the heir of a great 
estate, they both agreed upon an exchange of children; i. 
namely, that the boy should be bred up with Leontine 
as his son, and that the girl should live with Eudoxus 
•as his daughter, till they w^ere each of them arrived at 
years of discretion. The wife of Eudoxus, knowing that 
her son could not be so advantageously brought up as ij 
under the care of Leontine, and considering at the same 
time that he would be perpetually under her own eye, 
was by degrees prevailed upon to fall in with the project. 
She therefore took Leonilla, for that was the name of 
the girl, and educated her as her own daughter. The 
two friends on each side had wrought themselves to 
such an habitual tenderness for the children who were 
under their direction, that each of them had the real 
passion of a father, where the title Avas but imaginary. 
Florio, the name of the young heir that lived with 
Leontine, though he had all the duty and affection 
imaginable for his supposed parent, was taught to rejoice 
at thesight of Eudoxus, w^ho visited his friend very fre- 
quently, and was dictated by his natural affection, as 
well as by the rules of prudence, to make himself s 



FLORIO AND LEONILLA 165 

esteemed and beloved by Florio. The boy was now old 
enough to know his supposed father's circumstances, 
and that therefore he was to make his way in the world 
by his own industry. This consideration grew stronger 

6 in him every day, and produced so good an effect that 
he applied himself with more than ordinary attention to 
the pursuit of everything which Leontine recommended 
to him. His natural abilities, which were very good, 
assisted by the directions of so excellent a counsellor, 

enabled him to make a quicker progress than ordinary 
through all the parts of his education. Before he was 
twenty years of age, having finished his studies and 
exercises with great applause, he was removed from the 
University to the Inns of Court, where there are very 

5 few that make themselves considerable proficients in the 
studies of the place, who know they shall arrive at great 
estates without them. This was not Florio 's case; he 
found that three hundt'ed a year was but a poor estate 
for Leontine and himself to live upon, so that he studied 

-0 without intermission till he gained a very good insight 
into the constitution and laws of his country. 

I should have told my reader, that whilst Florio lived 
at the house of his foster-father he was always an 
acceptable guest in the family of Eudoxus, where he 

5 became acquainted with Leonilla from her infancy. His 
acquaintance with her, by degrees grew into love, which 
in a mind trained up in all the sentiments of honor and 
virtue became a very uneasy passion. He despaired of 
gaining an heiress of sogi-eat a fortune, and would rather 

have died than attempted it by any indirect methods. 



166 ROGER DE COYERLEY PAPERS 

Leonilla, who was a woman of the greatest beauty 
joined with the greatest modesty, entertained at the 
same time a secret passion for Florio, but conducted 
herself with so much prudence that she never gave him 
the least intimation of it. Florio was now engaged in 5 
all those arts and improvements that are proper to raise 
a man's private fortune, and give him a figure in his 
country, but secretly tormented with that passion which 
burns with the greatest fury in a virtuous and noble 
heart, when he received a sudden summons from Leontine i| 
to repair to him into the country the next day. For it 
seems Eudoxus was so filled with the report of his son's 
reputation that he could no longer withhold making 
himself known to him. The morning after his arrival 
at the house of his supposed father, Leontine told him t 
that Eudoxus had something of great importance to 
communicate to him; upon which the good man 
embraced him and wept. Florio was no sooner arrived 
at the great house that stood in his neighborhood but 
Eudoxus took him by the hand, after the first salutes 2 
were over, and conducted him into his closet. He 
there opened to him the whole secret of his parentage 
and education, concluding after this manner: *'I have 
no other w^ay left of acknowledging my gratitude to 
Leontine than by marrying you to his daugliter. He 2 
shall not lose the pleasure of being your father by the 
discovery I have made to you. Leonilla, too, shall be 
still my daughter; her filial piety, though misplaced, 
has been so exemplary that it deserves the greatest 
reward I can confer upon it. You shall have the pleasure 3 



FLORIO AND LEONILLA 167 

of seeing a great estate fall to you, which yon would have 
lost the relish of had you known yourself born to it. 
Continue only to deserve it in the same manner you did 
before you were possessed of it. I have left your mother 

5 in the next room. Her heart yearns toward you. She 
is making the same discoveries to Leonilla which I have 
made to yourself. " Florio was so overwhelmed with this 
profusion of happiness that he v/as not able to make a 
reply, but threw himself down at his father's feet, and 

10 amidst a flood of tears kissed and embraced his knees, 
asking his blessing, and expressing in dumb show those 
sentiments of love, duty, and gratitude that were too 
big for utterance. To conclude, the happy pair were 
married, and half Eudoxus's estate settled upon them. 

15 Leontine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of their 
lives together ; and received in the dutiful and affectionate 
behavior of Florio and Leonilla the just recompense, as 
well as the natural effects, of that care which they had 
bestowed upon them in their education.^ 

' Addison's feeHngs on finishing this paper are described in 
the following letter to Mr. Edward Wortley Montague : 

"Dear Sir: — Being very well pleased with this day's Sjyec- 
tator, I cannot forbear sending you one of them, and desiring 
your opinion of the story in it. When you have a son I shall 
be glad to be his Leontine, as my circumstances will probably 
be like his. I have within this twelvemonth lost a place of 
£2,000 per annum, an estate in the Indies of £14,000, and what 
is worse than all the rest, my mistress. Hear this and 
wonder at my philosophy. I find they are going to take away 
my Irish place from me too ; to which I must add that I have 
just resigned my fellowship and that stocks sink every day^ 



168 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

If you have any hints or subjects, pray send me up a paper 
full. I long to talk an evening with you. I believe I shall 
not go for Ireland this summer, and perhaps would pass a 
month with you, if I knew where. Lady Bellasis is very 
much your humble servant. Dick Steele and I often 
remember you. 

"I am, dear sir, yours eternally, 
*'July 21, 1711. Joseph Addison • 



XXII 

PARTY FEELING 
[No. 125.— Addison. Tuesday, July S4.] 

Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella: 
Neu patriae validas in viscera A'ertite vires. ^ 

— Virgil. 

My worthy friend, Sir Roger, when we are talking of 
the malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident 
that happened to him when he was a school boy, which 
was at a time when feuds ran high between the 
Roundheads and Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being 
then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was 
the way to St.* Anne's Lane, upon which the person 
whom he spoke to, instead of answering his question, 
called him a young popish cur, and asked him who had 
made Anne a saint. The boy, being in some confusion, 
inquired of the next he met, which was the way to 
Anne's Lane; but was called a jmck -eared cur for his 
pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told 
that she had been a saint before he was born, and would 
be one after he was hanged. "Upon this," says Sir 
Roger, "I did not think fit to repeat the former ques- 

' Do not, my children, accustom your minds to great con- 
flicts nor turn your sturdy strength against the vitals of your 
country. 



170 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

tion, but going into every lane of the neigliborhood, 
asked what they called the name of that lane." By 
which ingenious artifice he found out the place he 
inquired after, without giving offence to any party. Sir 
Roger generally closes this narrative with reflections on 
the mischief that parties do in the country; how they 
spoil good neighborhood, and make honest gentlemen 
hate one another ; besides that they manifestly tend to 
the prejudice of the land-tax, and the destruction of the 
game. 

There cannot a greater judgment befall a country 
than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a govern- 
ment into two distinct people, and makes them greater 
strangers and more averse to one another than if they 
were actually two different nations. The effects of such a la 
division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with 
regard to those advantages which they give the common 
enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in 
the heart of almost every particular person. This 
influence is very fatal both to men's morals and their 2t 
understandings ; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not 
only so, but destroys even common sense. 

A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full vio- 
lence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed ; and when 
it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in 2t 
falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a parti 1 adminis- 
tration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with 
spleen and rancor, and extinguishes all the sf eds of good- 
nature, compassion, and humanity. 

Plutarch says, very finely, that a man should not allow a 



PARTY FEELING 171 

himself to hate even his enemies, because, says he, if 
you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise of 
itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will 
contract such a vicious habit of mind as by degrees will 

6 break out upon those who are your friends, or those, 
who are indifferent to you. I might here observe how 
admirably this precept of morality (which derives the 
malignity of hatred from the passion itself, and not from 
its object) answers to that great rule which was dictated 

10 to the world about an hundred years before this philoso- 
pher ^\Tote; but instead of that, I shall only take notice, 
with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many good 
men among us appear soured with party principles, 
and alienated from one another in such a manner as 

15 seems to me altogether inconsistent with the dictates 
either of reason or religion. Zeal for a public cause is 
apt to breed passions in the hearts of virtuous persons to 
w^hich the regard of their own private interest would 
never have betrayed them. 

20 If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it 

' has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. AYe 

often hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, 

and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who 

are of a different principle from the author. One who 

25 is actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity 
of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man 
of merit in a different principle* is like an object seen 
in two different mediums, that appears crooked or 
broken, however straight or entire it may be in itself. 

30 For this reason, there is scarce a person of any figure in 



172 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

England who does not go by two contrary characters, 
as opposite to one another as light and darkness. 
Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner 
from this strange prejudice, which at present prevails 
amongst all ranks and degrees in the British nation. As 5 
men formerly became eminent in learned societies by 
their parts and acquisitions, they now distinguish them- 
selves by the warmth and violence with which they 
espouse their respective parties. Books are valued upon 
the like considerations : An abusive, scurrilous style passes lo 
for satire, and a dull scheme of party notions is called 
fine writing. 

There is one piece of sophistry practiced by both sides, 
and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been 
ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a is 
known, undoubted truth, and raising suitable specula- 
tions upon it. Calumnies that have never been proved, 
or have been often refuted, are the ordhmYjposfuIahfDis 
of these infamous scribblers, upon which they proceed 
as upon first principles granted by all men, though in 20 
their liearts they know they are false, or at best very 
doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of 
scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is 
every way answerable to them. If this shameless 
practice of the present age endures much longer, 25 
praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action 
in good men. 

There are certain periods of time in all governments 
when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn 
in pieces by the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and France 30 



— PARTY FEELING 173 

by those who were for and against the league: But it is 
very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and 
tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of 
artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and 
5 di'aws several well-meaning persons to their interest* 
by a specious concern for their country. How many 
honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbaroiia 
notions, out of their zeal for the public good! AVhat 
cruelties and outrages would they not commit against 

10 men of an adverse j^arty, whom they would honor and 
esteem, if, instead of considering them as they are 
represented, they knew them as they are! Thus are 
persons of the gi'eatest probity seduced into shameful 
errors and prejudices, and made bad men even by that 

15 noblest of principles, the love of their country. I 
cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish 
proverb, "If there were neither fools nor knaves in the 
world, all people would be of one mind." 

For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest 

20 men would enter into an association for the support of 
one another against the endeavors of those whom they 
ought to look uj^on as their common enemies, whatso- 
ever side they may belong to. Were tliere such an 
honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the 

25 worst of men in the great figures of life, because they are 
useful to a party ; nor the best unregarded, because they 
are above practicing those methods which would be 
grateful to their faction. We should then single every 
criminal out of the herd, and hunt him down, however 

30 formidable and overgrown he might appear: On the 



174 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

contrary, we should shelter distressed innocence, and 
defend virtue, however beset with contempt or ridicule, 
envy or defamation. In short, we should not any longer 
regard our fellow subjects as Whigs or Tories, but should 
make the man of merit onr friend, and the villain our 5 
enemy, C. 



XXIII 

WHIGS, AND TORIES 

[No. 126.— Addison. Wednesday, July 25.] 

Tros Rutuliisve fuat, niiilo discrimine habebo.^ 

— Virgil. 

In my yesterday's paper, I proposed that the honest 
men of all parties should enter into a kind of association 
for the defence of one another and the confusion of 
their common enemies. As it is designed this neutral 

s body should act with a regard to nothing but truth and 
equity and divest themselves of the little heats and 
prepossessions that cleave to parties of all kinds, I have 
prepared for them the following form of an association, 
which may express their intentions in the most plain and 

10 simple manner : 

We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do solemnly 
declare that we do in our consciences believe two and 
two make four; and that we shall adjudge any man 
whatsoever to be our enemy who endeavors to persuade 

15 us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to maintain, 
with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that 
six is less than seven in all times and all places, and that 
ten will not be more three years hence tlian it is at 
present. We do also firmly declare, that it is our 

so resolution as long as we live to call Black black, and 

^ I will make no difference between Trojans and Rutulians. 
U5 



176 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

White white. And we shall upon all occasions oppose 
such persons that,* upon any day of the year, shall call 
Black white, or White black, with the utmost peril of 
our lives and fortunes. 

Were there such a combination of honest men, who s 
without any regard to places would endeavor to extirpate 
all such furious zealots as would sacrifice one half of 
their country to the passion and interest of the other; as 
also such infamous hypocrites that are for promoting 
their own advantage under color of the public good; i 
with all the profligate, immoral retainers to each side, 
that have nothing to recommend them but an implicit 
submission to their leaders; — ^we should soon see that 
furious party spirit extinguished, which may in time 
expose us to the derision and contempt of all the nations i 
about us. 

A member of this society that would thus carefully 
employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing 
down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from 
those conspicuous stations of life to which they have a 
been sometimes advanced, and all this without any 
regard to his private interest, would be no small bene- 
factor to his country. 

I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an 
account of a very active little animal, which I think he ss; 
calls the ichneumon, that makes it the whole business 
of his life to break the eggs of the crocodile, which he 
is always in search after. This instinct is the more 
remarkable because the ichneumon never feeds upon the 
eggs he has broken, nor in any other way finds his so 



WHIGS AND TORIES 177 

account in them. Were it not for the incessant labors 
of this industrious animal, Egypt, says the historian, 
would be overrun with crocodiles; for the Egyptians 
are so far from destroying those pernicious creatures 

5 that they worship them as gods. 

If we look into the behavior of ordinary partisans, we 
shall find them far from resembling this disinterested 
animal, and rather acting after the example of the wild 
Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a man of the 

10 most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as think- 
ing that upon his decease the same talents, whatever post 
they qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer. 
As in the whole train of my speculations I have 
endeavored, as much as I am able, to extinguish that 

15 pernicious spirit of passion and prejudice which rages 
with the same violence in all parties, I am still the more 
desirous of doing some good in this particular because I 
observe that tlie spirit of party reigns more in the country 
than in the town. It here contracts a kind of brutality 

20 and rustic fierceness to which men of a politer conversa- 
tion are wholly strangers. It extends itself even to the 
return of the bow and the hat ; and at the same time 
that the heads of parties preserve toward one another an 
outward show of good breeding, and keep up a perpetual 

25 intercourse of civilities, their tools that are dispersed in 
these outlying parts will not so much as mingle together 
at a cock-match. This humor fills the country with 
several periodical meetings of Whig jockeys and Tory 
fox-hunters, not to mention the innumerable curses, 

30 frowns, and whispers rt produces at a quarter sessions. 



178 ROGER DE COYERLEY PAPERS 

I do not know whether I have observed in any of my 
former papers that my friend Sir Roger de Coverley and 
Sir Andrew Freeport are of different principles; the 
first of them inclined to the landed and the other to the 
moneyed interest. This hnmor is so moderate in each 5 
of them that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable 
raillery, which very often diverts the rest of the club. 
I find, however, that the knight is a much stronger Tory 
in the country than in town, which, as he has told me 
in my ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his lo 
interest. In all our journey from London to his house 
Ave did not so much as bait at a Whig inn; or if by 
chance the coachman stopped at a wa'ong place, one of 
Sir Roger's servants woukl ride up to. his master full 
speed, and Avhisper to him that the master of the house is 
was against such an one in tlie last election. This 
often betrayed us into hard beds and bad cheer ; for we 
w^ere not so inquisitive about the inn as the innkeeper, 
and, provided our landlord's principles were sound, did 
not take any notice of the staleness of his provisions. 20 
This I found still the more inconvenient because the 
better the host was, the worse generally were his accommo- 
dations; the fellow knowing very well that those who 
were his friends would take up with coarse diet and an hard 
lodging. For these reasons, all the while I was upon 25 
the road I dreaded entering into an house of any one 
that Sir Roger had applauded for an Iionest man. 

Since my stay at Sir Roger's in the country, I daily 
,find more instances of this narrow party-humor. Being 
upon a bowling-green at a neighboring market-town the 30 



WHIGS AND TORIES 1 79 

other day (for that is the place where the gentlemen of 
one side meet once a week), I observed a stranger among 
them of a better presence and genteel er behavior than 
ordinary ; bat was much surprised that, notwithstanding 

5 he was a very fair bettor, nobody would take him up. 
But, upqn inquiry, I found that he was one that had 
given a disagi'eeabie vote in a former parliament, for 
which reason there was not a man upon that bowling- 
green who would have so much correspondence vrith him 

as to win his money of him. 

Among other instances of this nature, I must not omit 
one wdiich concerns myself. Will Wimble was the other 
day relating several strange stories, that he had picked 
up nobody knows where, of a certain great man ; and upon 

5 my staring at him, as one that was surprised to hear sucli 
things in the country, which had never been so much 
as whispered in the town, Will stopped short in the 
thread of his discourse, and after dinner asked my friend 
Sir Roger in his car if lie was sure that I was lot a 

fanatic. 

It gives me a serious concern to see such a spirit of 
dissension in the countr}- ; not only as it destroys virtue 
and common sense, and renders us in a manner barbarians 
towards one another, but as it perpetuates our animosi- 
ties, widens our breaches, and transmits our present 
passions and prejudices to our posterity. For my own 
part, I am sometimes afraid that I discover the seeds of 
a civil war in these our divisions, and therefore cannot 
but bewail, as in their first principles, the miseries and 
cahimities of our childi'en. C. 



XXIV 

SIR ROGER AND THE GYPSIES 
[No. 130.— Addison. Monday, July 30.] 

Semperque recentes 

Convectare juvat praedas, et vivere rapto.^ 

— Virgil. 

As I was yesterday riding out in the fields with my 
friend Sir Roger, we saw at a little distance from iis a 
troop of gypsies. Upon the first discovery of them, my 
friend was in some doubt whether he should not exert 
the justice of the peace upon such a band of lawless si 
vagrants ; but not having his clerk with him, who is a 
necessary counsellor on these occasions, and fearing that 
his poultry might fare the worse for it, he let the thought 
di'op; but at the same time gave me a particular account 
of the mischiefs they do in the country, in stealing 
people's goods and spoiling their servants. ''If a stray 
piece of linen hangs upon an hedge,'* says Sir Roger, 
"they are sure to have it; if the hog loses his way in 
the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey; 
our geese cannot live in peace for them; if a man 
prosecutes them with severity, his hen-roost is sure to 
pay for it. They generally straggle into these parts about 

* It is always a pleasant thing to gather fresh spoils and 
live on one's thefts. 

180 



SIR ROGER AND THE GYPSIES 181 

this time of the year, and set the heads of our servant- 
maids so agog for husbands that we do not expect to 
have any business done as it should be whilst they are 
in the country. I have an honest dairymaid who crosses 

5 their hands with a piece of silver every summer, and 
never fails being promised the handsomest young fellow 
in the parish for her pains. Your friend, the butler, 
has been fool enough to be seduced by them; and, 
though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork, or a spoon 

10 every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts him- 
self up in the pantry with an old gypsy for about half an 
hour once in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are the things 
they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon 
all those that apply themselves to them. You see, now 

15 and then, some handsome young jades among them ; the 
sluts have often very white teeth and black eyes." 

Sir Roger, observing that I listened with great atten- 
tion to his account of a people who were so entirely new 
to me, told me that if I would they should tell us our 

20 fortunes. As I was very well pleased with the knight's 
proposal, we rid up and communicated our hands to 
them. A Cassandra of the crew, after having examined 
my lines very diligently, told me that I loved a pretty 
maid in the corner; that I was a good woman's man; 

25 with some other particulars which I do not think proper 
to relate. My friend Sir Roger alighted from his horse, 
and exposing his palm to two or three that stood by, they 
crumpled it into all shapes, and diligently scanned every 
wrinkle that could be made in it; when one of them, 

30 who was older and more sunburnt than the rest, told 



I S5 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

him that he had a widow in his line of life: Ui-)on 
which the knight cried, "Go, go, you are an idle 
baggage"; and at the same time smiled upon me. The 
gypsy, finding he was not displeased in his heart, told 
him, after a further inquiry into his hand, that his true 
love was constant, and that she should dream of him 
to-night. My old friend cried "Pish!"' and bid her go 
on. The gypsy told him that he was a bachelor, but 
would not be so long : and that he was dearer to somebody 
than he thought: the knight still repeated she was aii 
idle baggage, and bid her go on. "Ah, master," says 
the gypsy, "that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty 
woman's heartache; you ha 'n't that simper about the 
mouth for nothing—." The uncouth gibberish with 
which all this was uttered, like the dai^kness of an 
oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, 
the knight left the money with her that he had crossed 
her hand with, and got up again on his horse. 

As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me that 
he knew several sensible people who believed these 20^ 
gypsies now and then foretold very strange things ; and 
for half an hour together appeared more jocund than 
ordinary. In the height of his good humor, meeting 
a common beggar upon the road who was no conjurer, 
as he went to relieve him he found his pocket was 25 
picked; that being a kind of palmistry at which this 
race of vermin are very dexterous. 

I might here entertain my reader with historical 
remarks on this idle, profligate people, who infest all 
the countries of Europe, and live in the midst of govern- 30 



SIR ROGER AND THE GYPSIES 183 

ments in a kind of commonwealth by themselves. But 
instead of entering into observations of this nature, I 
shall fill the remaining part of my paper v/ith a story 
which rs still fresh in Holland, and was printed in one of 
o our monthly accounts about twenty years ago : 

*'As the trehsclmyt^ or hackney boat, which carries 
passengers from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, 
a boy running along the side of the canal desired to be 
taken in: which the master of the boat refused, because 

10 the lad had not quite money enough to pay the usual fare. 
An eminent merchant, being pleased with the looks of 
the boy, and secretly touched with compassion towards 
him, paid the money for him, and ordered him to be 
taken on board. 

15 "Upon talking with him afterwards, he found that he 
could speak readily in three or four languages, and 
learned upon farther examination that he had been stolen 
away when he was a child, by a gypsy, and had rambled 
ever since with a gang of those strollers up and down 

20 several parts of Europe. It happened that the mer- 
chant, whose heart seems to have inclined towards the boy 
by a secret kind of instinct, had himself lost a child 
some years before. The parents, after a long search for 
him, gave him for drowned in one of the canals with 

25 which that country abounds ; and the mother was so 
afflicted at the loss of a fine boy, who was her only son, 
that she died for grief of it. 

"Upon laying together all particulars, and examining 
the several moles and marks by which the mother used 



184 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

to describe the child when he was first missing, the boy 
proved to be the son of the merchant whose heart had 
so unaccountably melted at the sight of him. The lad 
was very well pleased to find a father who was so rich, 
and likely to leave him a good estate ; the father, on the 5 
other hand, was not a little delighted to see a son 
returned to him, whom he had given for lost, with such 
a strength of constitution, sharpness of understanding, 
and skill in languages." 

Here the printed story leaves off ; but if I may give lo 
credit to reports, our linguist, having received such 
extraordinary rudiments towards a good education, was 
afterwards trained up in everything that becomes a 
gentleman; wearing off by little and little all the vicious 
habits and practices that he had been used to in the 15 
course of his peregrinations. Nay, it is said that he has 
since been employed in foreign courts upon national 
business, with great reputation to himself and honor to 
those who sent him, and that he has visited several 
countries as a public minister, in which he formerly 20 
wandered as a gypsy. C. 



XXV 

A SUMMONS TO LONDON 
[No. 131. — Addison. Tuesday, July 31.] 

Ipsae rursum concedite sylvae.^ 

— Virgil. 

It is usual for a man who loves country sports to pre- 
serve the game in his own grounds, and divert himself 
upon those that belong to his neighbor. My friend Sir 
Eoger generally goes two or three miles from his house, 

6 and gets into the frontiers of his estate, before he beats 
about in search of an hare or partridge, on purpose to 
spare his own fields, where he is always sure of finding di- 
version when the worst comes to the worst. By this means 
the breed about his house has time to increase and mul- 

10 tiply ; besides that the sport is the more agreeable where 
the game is the harder to come at, and does not lie so 
thick as to produce any perplexity or confusion in the pur- 
suit. For these reasons the country gentleman, like 
the fox, seldom preys near his own home. 

15 In the same manner I have made a month's excursion 
out of the town, which is the gi'eat field of game for 
sportsmen of my species, to try my fortune in the 
country, where I have stai'ted* several subjects and 
hunted them down, with some pleasure to myself, and I 

' Once more, ye woods, adieu, 

185 



186 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

hope to others. I am here forced to use a gi'eat deal of 
diligence before I can spring anj^thing to my mind; 
whereas in town, whilst I am following one character, 
it is ten to one but I am crossed in my way by another, 
and 23nt up such a variety of odd creatures in both sexes 5 
that they foil the scent of one another, and puzzle th-e 
chase. My greatest difficulty in the country is to find 
sport, and, in town, to choose it. In the meantime, as 
I have gi\^en a whole month's rest to the cities of Lon- 
don and Westminster, I promise myself abundance of i(( 
new game upon my return thither. 

It is indeed high time for me to leave the country, 
since I find the whole neighborhood begin to grow very 
inquisitive after my name and character; my love of 
solitude, taciturnity, and particular way of life, having it 
raised a great curiosity in all these parts. 

The notions which have been framed of me are 
various : some look upon me as very proud, and some as 
very melancholy. Will Wimble, as my friend the butler 
tells me, observing me very much alone, and extremely 2C 
silent when I am in company, is afraid I have killed a 
man. The country people seem to suspect me for a 
conjurer; and, some of them hearing of the visit 
which I made to Moll White, will needs have it that Sir 
Roger has brought down a cunning man with him, to 25 
cure the old woman and free the country from her 
charms. So that the character which I go under in part 
of the neighborhood, is what they call here a *' White 
Witch." 

A justice of peace, who lives about five miles off, and 30 



A SUMMONS TO LONDON 187 

is not of Sir Roger's party, has, it seems, said twice or 
thrice at his table that he wishes * Sir Eoger does not har- 
bor a Jesuit in his house, and that he thinks the gentle- 
men of the country would do very well to make me give 

5 some account of m3^self. 

On the other side, some of Sir Roger's friends are 
afraid the old knight is imposed upon by a designing 
fellow, and as they have heard that he converses very 
promiscuously, when he is in town, do not know but 

10 he has brought down with him some discarded Whig, 
that is sullen and says nothing because he is out of 
place. 

Such is the variety of opinions that are here enter- 
tained of me, so that I pass among some for a disaffected 

15 person, and among others for a popish priest; among 
some for a wizard, and among others for a murderer; 
and all this for no other reason, that I can imagine, but 
because I do not hoot and hollow and make a noise. It 
is true my friend Sir Roger tells them, that it is my 

20 ivay^ and that I am only a philosopher ; but that will 
not satisfy them. They think there is more in me than 
he discovers, and that I do not hold my tongue for 
nothing. 

For these and other reasons I shall set out for London 

25 to-morrow, having found by experience that the country 
is not a place for a person of my temper, who does 
not love jollity, and what they call good neighborhood. 
A man that is out of humor when an unexpected guest 
breaks in upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an 

30 afternoon to every chance-comer ; that will be the master 



188 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

of his own time, and the pursuer of his own inclinations 
makes but a very unsociable figure in this kind of life. 
I shall therefore retire into the town, if I may make 
use of that phrase, and get into the crowd again as fast 
as I can, in order to be alone. I can there raise what 5 
speculations I please upon others, without being observed 
myself, and at the same time enjoy all the advantages 
of company with all the privileges of solitude. In the 
meanwhile, to finish the month, and conclude these my 
rural speculations, I shall here insert a letter from my lO 
friend Will Honeycomb, who has not lived a month for 
these forty years out of the smoke of London, and rallies 
me after his way upon my country life. 

"Dear Spec. 

"I suppose this letter will find thee picking of daisies, 15^ 
or smelling to a lock of hay, or passing away thy time 
in some innocent country diversion of the like nature. 
I have, however, orders from the club to summon thee 
up to town, being all of us cursedly afraid thou wilt not 
be able to relish our company after thy conversations with 20: 
Moll White and Will Wimble. Pr'ythee don't send us 
up any more stories* of a cock and a bull, nor frighten 
the town with spirits and witches. Thy speculations 
begin to smell confoundedly of woods and meadows. If 
thou dost not come up quickly, we shall conclude that 25: 
thou art in love with one of Sir Roger's dairy-maids. 
Service to the knight. Sir Andrew has grown the cock 
of the club since he left us, and if he does not return 
quickly will make every mother's son of us Common- 
wealth's men. 

"Dear Spec, 

"Thine Eternally, 
C. "Will Hoi^eycomb." 



XXVI 

THE COACH TO LONDON 

[No. 132. — Steele. Wednesday, August 1.1 

Qui aut tempus quid postulet non videt, aut plura loquitur, 
aut se ostentat, aut eorum quibuscum est rationem non habet, 
is ineptus esse dicitur.^ — Tully. 

Having notified to my good friend Sir Roger that I 
should set out for London the next day, his horses were 
ready at the appointed hour in the evening; and 
attended by one of his gTooms, I arrived at the county 

5 town at twilight, in order to be ready for the stage-coach 
the day following. As soon as we arrived at the inn, the 
servant who" waited upon me, inquired of the chamber- 
lain, in my hearing, what company he had for the coach. 
The fellow answered, *'Mrs.* Betty Arable, the great 

10 fortune, and the widow, her mother ; a recruiting officer 
(who took a place because they were to go); young 
Squire Quickset, her cousin (that her mother wished 
her to be married to); Ephraim the Quaker, her 
guardian; and a gentleman that had studied himself 

15 dumb from Sir Roger de Coverley's." I observed, by 
what he said of myself, that according to his office, he 
dealt much in intelligence ;* and doubted not but there 

^ He is said to be inept who does not see that he is taking up 
the time, or talking too much, or obtrudes himself, or has no 
regard for those he is with. 

I8d 



190 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

was some foundation for his reports of the rest of the 
compan}', as well as for the whimsical account he gave 
of me. 

The next morning at daybreak we were all called; and 
I, who know my own natural shyness, and endeavor to 5 
be as little liable to be disputed with as possible, dressed 
immediately, that I might make no one wait. The first 
preparation for our setting out was, that the captain's 
half pike w^as placed near the coachman, and a drum 
behind the coach. In tlie meantime the drummer, the 10 
captain's equipage, was very loud that none of the 
captain's things should be placed so as to be spoiled; 
upon which his cloak bag was fixed in the seat of the 
coach: And the captain himself, according to a fre- 
quent thougli invidious behavior of military men, 15 
ordered his man to look sharp that none but one of the 
ladies should have the place he had taken fronting to 
the coach-box. 

We were in some little time fixed in our seats, and sat 
witli that dislike which people not too good-natured 20 
usually conceive of each other at first sight. The coach 
jumbled us insensibly into some sort of familiarity, and 
vv'c had not moved above two miles when the widow 
asked the captain what success he had in his recruiting. 
The officer, with a frankness he believed very graceful, 25 
told her that indeed he had but very little luck, and 
had suffered much by desertion, therefore should be glad 
to end his warfare in the service of her or her fair 
daughter. ""In a word, ■' continued he, *'I am a soldier, 
and to be plain is my character ; you see me, Madam, 3C 



THE COACH TO LONDON 191 

young,sonnd, and impudent ; take me yourself, Widow, or 
give me to her ; I will be wholly at your disposal. I am a 
soldier of fortune, ha!" This was followed by a vain 
laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of 
the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast 
asleep, which I did with all speed. "Come," said he, 
"resolve upon it, we will make a wedding at the next 
town: we will wake this pleasant companion who is 
fallen asleep, to be the brideman, and" (giving the 

Quaker a clap on the knee), he concluded, "this sly 
saint, who, I'll warrant, understands what's what as well 
as you or I, Widow, shall give the bride as father." 

The Quaker, who happened to be a man of smartness, 
answered, "Friend, I take it in good part, that thou 

5 hast given me the authority of a father over this comely 
and virtuous child; and Imust assure thee that, if I have 
the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee. Thy 
mirth, friend, savoreth of folly ; thou art a person of a 
light mind; thy di'um is a type of thee — it soundeth 
because it is empty. Verily, it is not from thy fulness 
but thy emptiness that thou hast spoken this day. 
Friend, friend, we have hired this coach in partnership 
with thee, to carry us to the great city, we cannot go 
any other way. This worthy mother must hear thee if 
thou wilt needs utter thy follies; we cannot help it, 
friend, I say; if thou wilt, we must hear thee; but, if 
thou wert a m^an of understanding, thou wouldst not 
take advantage of thy courageous countenance to abash 
us children of peace. Thou art, thou sayest, a soldier : 

give quarter to us, who cannot resist thee. Why didp.t 



192 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

thou fleer at our friend, who feigned himself asleep? ' 
He said nothing, but how dost thou know what he con- 
taineth? If thou speakest improper things in the heai'ing 
of this virtuous young virgin, consider it is an outrage 
against a distressed person that cannot get from thee: 
To speak indiscreetly what we are obliged to hear, 
by being hasped up with thee in this public vehicle, is ! 
in some degree assaulting on the high road." 

Here Ephraim paused, and the captain, with a happy 
and uncommon impudence (which can be convicted and 
support itself at the same time), cries, * 'Faith, friend, 
I thank thee ; I should have been a little impertinent 
if thou hadst not reprimanded me. Come, thou art, I 
see, a smoky old fellow, and I'll be very orderly the 
ensuing part of the journey. I was going to give 
myself airs, but, ladies, I beg pardon." 

The captain was so little out of humor, and our com- 
pany was so far from being soured by this little ruffle, 
that Ephraim and he took a particular delight in being 
agreeable to each other for the future, and assumed i 
their different provinces in the conduct of the company. 
Our reckonings, apai'tments, and accommodation fell 
under Ephraim ; and the captain looked to all disputes 
on the road, as the good behavior of our coachman, and 
the right* we had of taking place as going to London s 
of all vehicles coming from thence. The occurrences we 
met with were ordinary, and very little happened which 
could entertain by the relation of them: But when I 
considered the company we were in, I took it for no 
small good fortune that the whole journey was not spent a 



THE COACH TO LONDON 193 

in impertinences, wliicli to one part of us might be an 
entertainment, to the other a suffering. 

What, therefore, Ephraim said when we were almost 
arrived at London, had to me an air not only of good 

5 understanding but good breeding.* Upon the young 
lady's expressing her satisfaction in the journey, and 
declaring how delightful it had been to her, Ephraim 
delivered himself as follows: *' There is no ordinary part 
of human life which expresseth so much a good mind, 

10 and a right inward man, as his behavior upon meeting 
with strangers, especially such as may seem the most 
unsuitable companions to him : Such a man, when he 
falleth in the way with persons of simplicity and 
innocence, however knowing he may be in the ways of 

15 men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather 
hide his superiority to them, that he may not be painful 
unto them. My good friend, " continued he, turning to the 
officer, *'thee and I are to part by and by, and peradven- 
ture we may never meet again: But be advised by a 

20 plain man ; modes and apparel are but trifles to the real 
man, therefore do not think such a man as thyself terrible 
for thy garb, nor such a one as me contemptible for 
mine. When two such as thee and I meet, with affec- 
tions as we ought to have towards each other, thou 

25 shouldst rejoice to see my peaceable demeanor, and I 

should be glad to see thy strength and ability to protect 

me in it." T. 

^ "There was an insane dislike to Quakers in Queen Anne's 
reign, and I have not met with one kindly or sympathetic 
remark about them in all my varied reading of these times. " — 
John Ashton. 



XXVII 

SIR ANDREW ON TRADE 

[No. 174. — Steele. Wednesday, September 19.] 

Haec raemini et victum frustra contendere Thyrsin.^ 

— Virgil. 

There is scarce anything more common than animosi- 
ties between parties that cannot subsist but by their 
agreement: This was well represented in the sedition 
of the members of the human body in the old Eoman 
fable. It is often the case of lesser confederate states 
against a superior power, which are hardly held together, 
though their unanimity is necessary for their common 
safety : And this is always the case of the landed and 
trading interest of Great Britain ; the trader is fed by the 
product of the land, and the landed man cannot be 
clothed but by the skill of the trader and yet those 
interests are ever jarring. 

We had last winter an instance of this at our club, in 
Sir Eoger de Coverley and Sir Andrew Freeport, between 
whom there is generally a constant, though friendly, 
opposition of opinions. It happened that one of the 
company, in an historical discourse, was observing that 

' I remember these things and how Thyrsis, beaten, vainly 
went on in his contention, 

194 



SIR ANDREW ON TRADE 195 

Carthaginian faith was a proverbial phrase to intimate 
breach of leagues. Sir Roger said it could hardly be 
otherwise: That "the Carthaginians were the gi'eatest 
traders in the world; and as gain is the chief end of- 

5 such a people, they never pursue any other : The means 
to it are never regarded. They will, if it comes easily, 
get money honestly; but if not, they will not scruple 
to obtain it by fraud, or cozenage. And, indeed, what 
is the whole business of the trader's account, but to 

10 overreach him who trusts to his memory? But were 
that not so, what can there great and noble be expected 
from him whose attention is forever fixed upon balancing 
his books, and watching over his expenses? And at 
best, let frugality and parsimony be the virtues of the 

15 merchant, how much is his punctual dealing below a 
gentleman's charity to the poor, or hospitality among his 
neighbors!" 

Captain Sentry observed Sir Andrew very diligent in 
hearing Sir Roger, and had a mind to turn the discourse, 

20 by taking notice in general, from the highest to the 
lowest parts of human society, there was a secret, 
though unjust, way among men, of indulging the seeds 
of ill-nature and envy, by comparing their own state of 
life to that of another, and grudging the approach of 

25 their neighbor to their own happiness ; and on the other 
side, he who is the less at his ease, repines at the other 
who, he thinks, has unjustly the advantage over him. 
Thus the civil and military lists look upon each other with 
much ill-nature: the soldier repines at the courtier's 

30 power, and the courtier rallies the soldier's honor; or. 



196 ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS 

to come to lower instances, the private men in the 
horse and foot of an army, the carmen and coach- 
men in the city streets, mutually look upon each other 
with ill-will, when they are in competition for quarters 
or the way, in their respective motions. 

"It is very well, good captain," interrupted Sir 
Andrew. "You may attempt to turn the discourse if 
you think fit; but I must, however, have a word or two 
with Sir Roger, who, I see, thinks he has paid me off, 
and been very severe upon the merchant. I shall not," 
continued he, *'at this time remind Sir Eoger of the 
gi'eat and noble monuments of charity and public spirit 
which have been erected by merchants since the 
Reformation, but at present content myself with what 
he allows us, — parsimony and frugality. If it were 5 
consistent with the quality of so ancient a bai'onet as Sir 
Roger, to keep an account, or measure things by the 
most infallible way, that of numbers, he would prefer 
our parsimony to his hospitality. If to drink so many 
hogsheads is to be hospitable, we do not contend for the 
fame of that virtue ; but it would be worth while to con- 
sider whether so many artificers at work ten days 
together by my appointment, or so many peasants made 
merry on Sir Roger's charge, are the men more obliged? 
I believe the families of the artificers will thank me 
more than the households of the peasants shall* Sir 
Roger. Sir Roger gives to his men, but I place mine 
above the necessity or obligation of my bounty. I am 
in very little pain for the Roman proverb upon the 
Carthaginian traders ; the Romans were their professed a 



SIR ANDREW ON TRADE 197 

enemies: I am only sorry no Carthaginian histories 
have come to our hands ; we might have been taught, 
perhaps, by them some proverbs against the Roman gener- 
osity, in fighting for and bestowing other people's goods. 

5 But since Sir Roger has taken occasion from an old 
proverb to be out of humor with merchants, it should 
be no offence to offer one not quite so old in their 
defence. When a man happens to break in Holland, 
they say of him that 'he has not kept true accounts.' 

This phrase, perhaps, among us would appear a soft 
or humorous way of speaking, but with that exact nation 
it bears the highest reproach ; for a man to be mistaken in 
the calculation of his expense, in his ability to answer 
future demands, or to be impertinently* sanguine in 

5 putting his credit to too great adventure, are all 
instances of as much infamy as, with gayer nations, to 
be failing in courage or common honesty. 

** Numbers are so much the measure of everything 
that is valuable, that it is not possible to demonstrate 

the success of any action, or the prudence of any under- 
taking, without them. I say this in answer to what Sir 
Roger is pleased to say, that 'little that is truly noble 
can be expected from one who is ever poring on his 
cash-book or balancing his accounts.' When I have 

5 my returns from abroad, I can tell to a shilling, by the 
help of numbers, the profit or loss by my adventure ; but 
I ought also to be able to show that I had reason for 
making it, either from my own experience or that of 
other people, or from a reasonable presumption that my 

) returns will be sufficient to answer my expense and 



198 EOGER DE COVERI.EY PAPERS 

hazard ; and tliis is never to be done without the skill 
of numbers. For instance, if I am to trade to Tukey, 
I ought beforehand to know the demand of our manu- 
factures there, as well as of their silks in England, and 
the customary prices that are given for both in each 8 
country. I ought to have a clear knowledge of these 
matters beforehand, that I may presume upon sufficient 
retm*ns to answer the charge of the cargo I have fitted 
out, the freight and assurance out and home, the 
customs to the queen, and the interest of my own lof 
money, and besides all these expenses, a reasonable profit 
to myself. Now what is there of scandal in this skill? 
What has the merchant done that he should be so little 
in the good graces of Sir Roger? He throws down no 
man's enclosure, and tramples upon no man's corn;* is 
he takes nothing from the industrious laborer ; he pays 
the poor man for his work; he communicates his profit 
with mankind; by the preparation of his cargo, and the 
manufacture of his returns, he furnishes employment 
and subsistence to greater numbers than the richest ao| 
nobleman ; and even the nobleman is obliged to him for 
finding out foreign markets for the produce of his 
estate, and for making a great addition to his rents; 
and yet it is certain that none of all these things could 
be done by him without the exercise of his skill in 25 
numbers. 

"This is the economy of the merchant, and the con- 
duct of the gentleman must be the same, unless by 
scorning to be the steward, he resolves the steward shall 

^ A sly hit at the fox-hunting of the squires. 



SIR ANDREW OX TRADE 199 

be the gentleman. The gentleman, no more than the 
merchant, is able, withont the help of numbers, to 
account for the success of any action, or the prudence or 
any adventure. If, for instance, the chase is his whole 

5 adventure, his only returns must be the stag's horns in 
the great hall and the fox's nose upon the stable door. 
Without doubt Sir Koger knows tlie full value of these 
returns ; and if beforehand he had computed the charges 
of the chase, a gentleman of his discretion would certainly 

have hanged up all his dogs; he would never have 
brought back so many fine horses to the kennel ; he would 
never have gone so often, like a blast, over fields of corn. 
If such, too, had been the conduct of all his ancestors, he 
might truly have boasted, at this day, that the 

5 antiquity of his family had never been sullied by a trade ; 
a merchant had never been permitted with his whole 
estate to purchase a room for his picture in the gallery 
of the Coverley's, or to claim his descent from the maid 
of honor. But 'tis very happy for Sir Eoger that the 

JO merchant paid so dear for his ambition. 'Tis the mis- 
fortune of many other gentlemen to turn out of the seats 
of their ancestors, to make way for such new masters as 
have been more exact in their accounts than themselves ; 
and certainly he deserves the estate a great deal better 

25 who has got it by his industry, than he who has lost it 
by his negligence." T. 



XXVIII 

SIR ROGER IN LONDON » 
[No. 269. — Addison. Tuesday, January 8."] 

^vo rarissima nostro 

Simplicitas . ^ 

— Ovid. 

I was this morning surprised with, a great knocking 
at the door, when my landlady's daughter came up to 
me and told me that there was a man below desired to 
speak to me. Upon my asking her who it was, she told 
me it was a very grave, elderly person, but that she did 5 \ 
not know his name. I immediately went down to him, 
and found him to be the coachman of my worthy friend, 
Sir Roger de Coverley. He told me that his master 
came to town last night, and would be glad to take a 

^ Sir Roger and Will Honeycomb appear for a moment in 
No. 251 of the Spectator. There is nothing, says that issue of 
the paper, which more astonishes a foreigner, and frights a 
country squire, than the Cries of London^ My good friend 
Sir Roger often declares, that he cannot get them out of his 
head, or go to sleep for them the first week that he is in town. 
On the contrary, Will Honeycomb calls them the Ramage de 
la Ville [warblers of the town], and prefers them to the 
sounds of larks and nightingales, with all the music of the 
fields and woods. 

2 Simplicity, the rarest of things in our age. 

200 



SIR ROGER IN LONDON 201 

turn with me in Gray's Inn Walks. As I was wonder- 
ing in myself what had brought Sir Eoger to town, not 
having lately received any letter from him, he told me 
that his master was come up to get a sight of Prince 

5 Eugene, and that he desired I would immediately meet 
him. 

I was not a little pleased with the curiosity of the old 
knight, though I did not much wonder at it, having 
heard him say more than once in private discourse, that 

10 he looked upon Prince Eugenio (for so the knight always 
calls him) to be a greater man than Scanderbeg. 

I was no sooner come into Gray's Inn Walks, but I 
heard my friend upon the terrace hemming twice or 
thrice to himself with great vigor, for he loves to clear 

15 his pipes in good air (to make use of his own phrase), and 
is not a little pleased with any one who takes notice of 
the strength which he still exerts in his morning hems. 
I was touched with a secret joy at the sight of the 
good old man, who before he saw me was engaged in 

20 conversation with a beggar -man that had asked an alms 
of him. I could hear my friend chide him for not find- 
ing out some work ; but at the same time saw him put 
his hand in his pocket and give him sixpence. 

Our salutations were very hearty on both sides, con- 

25 sisting of many shakes of the hand, and several affection- 
ate looks which we cast upon one another. After which 
the knight told me my good friend his chaplain was 
very well, and much at my service, and that the Sunday 
before he had made a most incomparable sermon out of 

30 Doctor Barrow. "I have left," says he, "all my affairs 



202 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

in his hands, and being willing to lay an obligation npon 
him, have deposited with him thirty marks, to be dis- 
tributed among his poor parishioners." 

He then proceeded to acquaint me with the welfare 
of Will Wimble. Upon which he put his hand into his 5 
fob and presented me, in his name, Avith a tobacco- 
stopper, telling me that Will had been busy all the 
beginning of the winter in turning great /quantities of 
them, and that he made a present of one to every gentle- 
man in the country who has good principles* and smokes, lo 
He added that poor Will was at present under great 
tribulation, for that Tom Touchy had taken the law of 
him for cutting some hazel sticks out of one of his 
hedges. 

Among other pieces of news which the knight brought is 
from his country-seat, he informed me that Moll White 
was dead ; and that about a month after her death the 
wind was so very high that it blew down the end of one 
of his barns. "But for my own part," says Sir Roger, 
"I do not think that the old woman had any hand in it." 20 

He afterwards fell into an account of the diversions 
which had passed in his house during the holidays ; for 
Sir Roger, after the laudable custom of his ancestors, 
always keeps open house at Christmas. I learned from 
him that he had killed eight fat hogs for the season, 25 
that he had dealt about his chines very liberally amongst 
his neighbors, and that in particular he had sent a string 
of hog's -puddings with a pack of cards to every poor 
family in the parish. "I have ofteii thought," says Sir 
Roger, "it happens very well that Christmas should fall so 



SIR ROGER IN LONDON 203 

out in the middle of the winter. It is the most dead, 
uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people 
would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if 
they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas 

5 gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor 
hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry 
in my gi'eat hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to 
my small beer, and set it a running for twelve days to 
every one that calls for it. I have always apiece of cold 

10 beef and a mince pie upon the table, and am wonderfully 
pleased to see my tenants pass , away a whole evening 
in playing their innocent tricks, and smutting one 
another. Our friend ^Yill Wimble is as merry as any of 
them, and shows a thousand roguish tricks upon these 

15 occasions." 

I was very much delighted with the reflection of my 
old friend, which carried so much goodness in it. He 
then launched out into the praise of the late Act of 
Parliament for securing* the Church of England, and 

20 told me, with gi'eat satisfaction, that he believed it 
already began to take effect, for that a rigid Dissenter, 
who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, 
had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plum- 
porridge. 

25 After having dispatched all our country matters. Sir 
Roger made several inquiries concerning the club, and 
particularly of his old antagonist. Sir Andrew Freeport. 
He asked me with a kind of smile whether Sir Andrew 
had not taken advantage of his absence to vent among 

30 them some of his republican doctrines; but soon after, 



204 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

gathering up his countenance into a more than ordinary 
seriousness, "Tell me truly," says he, "don't you think 
Sir Andrew had a hand in the Pope's Procession?" — 
but without giving me time to answer him, "Well, 
well," says he, "I know you are a wary man, and do 5 
not care to talk of public matters." 

The knight then asked me if I had seen Prince 
Eugenio, and made me promise to get him a stand in 
some convenient place, where he might have a full sight 
of that extraordinary man, whose presence does so much lo 
honor to the British nation. 

He dwelt very long on the praises of this great general, 
and I found that, since I was with him in the country, 
he had drawn many observations together out of his 
reading in Baker's "Chronicle," and other authors, is 
who always lie in his hall window, which very much 
redound to the honor of this prince. 

Having passed away the greatest part of the morning 
in hearing the knight's reflections, which were partly 
private and partly political, he asked me if I would 20 
smoke a pipe with him over a dii-h. of coffee at Squire's. 
As I love the old man, I take delight in complying with 
everything that is agreeable to him, and accordingly 
waited on him to the coffee house, where his venerable 
figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He 25 
had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of the 
high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of 
tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle, and the 
Si(ppleme?it, with such an air of cheerfulness and good 
humor that all the boys in the coffee-room (who seemed 30 



SIR ROGER IN LONDON 205 

to take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed 
on his several errands, insomuch that no body else could 
come at a dish of tea till the knight had got all his 
conveniencies about him L. 



XXIX 

A SELECTION FROM A SPECTATOR 
\No. 295. — Addison. February 7.] 

Socrates in Plato's Alcibiades, says he was informed 
by one who had traveled through Persia that as he passed 
over a gi'eat tract of lands and inquired what the name 
of the place was, they told him it was the Queen's Girdle ; 
to which he adds that another wide field which lay by 5 
it was called the Queen's Veil and that in the same 
manner there was a large portion of ground set aside 
for every part of her majesty's di'ess. These lands might 
not be improperly called the Queen of Persia's Pin 
Money. i< 

I remember my friend, Sir Roger, who I dare say never 
read this passage in Plato, told me some time since that 
upon his courting the perverse widow (of whom I have 
given an account in former papers) he had disposed of an 
hundi'ed acres in a diamond ring, which he would have ie 
presented her with, had she thought fit to accept it, and 
that upon her wedding day she should have carried on 
her head fifty of the tallest oaks upon his estate. He 
further informed me that he would have given her a coal 
pit to keep her in clean linen, that he would have sc 
allowed her the profits of a windmill for her fans 
and have presented her once in three years with the 

206 



A SELECTION FROM A SPECTATOR 207 

shearing of his sheep for her under petticoats ; to which 
the knight always adds that, though he did not care for 
fine clothes himself, there should not have been a woman 
in the country better dressed than my Lady Coverley. 
Sir Eoger, perhaps, may in this, as well as in many other 
of his devices, appear something odd and singular, but if 
the humor of pin money prevails, I think it would be 
very proper for every gentleman of an estate to mark out 
so many acres of it under the title of the pins. L. 



XXX 

IN WESTMINSTER* ABBEY 1 

[No. 329.— Addison. Tuesday, March 18.] 

Ire tamen restat, Numa quo devenit et Ancus.* 

— Horace. 

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night 
that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster 
Abbey, in which, says he, there are a great many 
ingenious fancies. He told me, at the same time, that he 
observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, 5 
and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, 
not having visited them since he had read history. I 
could not at first imagine how this came into the knight 'a 
head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all 
last summer upon Baker's ** Chronicle, " which he has id 
quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew 
Freeport since his last coming to town. Accordingly, I 
promised to call upon him the next morning, that we 
might go together to the Abbey. 

I found the knight under his butlers hands, who 
always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he 
called for a glass of the widow Trueby's water, which he 
told me he always drank before he went abroad. He 
recommended me to a dram of it at the same time, 

^ It remains to go down whither Nuina has gone and Ancus. 

208 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 209 

with so much heartiness that I could not forbear drink- 
ing it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very 
unpalatable; upon which the knight, observing that I 
had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I 

5 should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing 
in the world against the stone or gravel. 

I could have wished, indeed, that he had acquainted 
me with the virtues of it sooner ; but it was too late to 
complain, and I knew what he had done was out of 

10 good-will. Sir Roger told me, further, that he looked 
upon it to be very good for a man, whilst he stayed in 
town, to keep off infection; and that he got together a 
quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being 
at Dantzic. When, of a sudden, turning short to one 

15 of his servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call 
an hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man 
that drove it. 

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby'a 
water, telling me that the Widow Trueby was one who 

20 did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in 
the county: That she distilled every poppy that grew 
within five miles of her ; that she distributed her water 
gratis among all sorts of people; to which the knight 
added that she had a very great jointure, and that the 

25 whole country would fain have it a match between him 

and her; ''And truly," said Sir Roger, ''if I had not 

been engaged* perhaps I could not have done better." 

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him 

he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after 

30 having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coach- 



210 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

man if his axle-tree was good; upon the fellow's telling 
him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, 
told me he looked like an honest man, and went in 
without further ceremony. 

We had not gone far when Sir Roger, popping out 5 
his head, called the coachman down from his box and, 
upon his presenting himself at the window, asked him 
if he smoked ; as I was considering what this would end 
in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist 
and take in a roll of their best A^irginia. Nothing 10 ] 
material happened in the remaining part of our journey 
till we were set down at the west end of the Abbey. 

As we went up the body of the church, the knight 
pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, 
and cried out, * 'A brave man, I warrant him !" Passing is: 
afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung his hand 
that way, and cried, "Sir Cloudesley Shovel! a very 
gallant man!" As we stood before Busby's tomb, the 
knight uttered himself again after the same manner : — 
"Dr. Busby — a great man! he Avhipped my grandfather 20 
— a very great man ! I should have gone to him myself 
if I had not been a blockhead — a very great man!" 

We were immediately conducted into the little chapel 
on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our 
historian's elbow, was very attentive to every thing he 25^ 
said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord 
who had cut olf the King of Morocco's head. Among 
several other figures, he was very well j)leased to see 
the statesman Cecil upon his knees; and, concluding 
them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure 30 1 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 211 

which represents that martyr to good housewifery who 
died by the prick of a needle. Upon our interpreter's 
telling us that she was a maid of honor to Queen 
Elizabeth, the knight was very inquisitive into her 

5 name and family ; and, after having regarded her finger 
for some time, "I wonder," says he, '*that Sir Richard 
Baker has said nothing of her in his * Chronicle.' " 

We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, 
where my old friend, after having heard that the stone 

10 underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought 
from Scotland, was called Jacob's Pillar, sat himself 
down in the chair, and, looking like the figure of an old 
Gothic king, asked our interpreter what authority they 
had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland. The 

15 fellow, instead of returning him an answer, told hiiB 
that he hoped his honor would pay his forfeit. I could 
observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon being thus 
trepanned; but, our guide not insisting upon his demand^ 
the knight soon recovered his good humor, and whispered' 

20 in my ear that if Will Wimble were with us, and saw 
those two chairs, it would go hard but he would get s 
tobacco -stopper out of one or t'other of them. 

Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon 
Edward Ill's sword, and, leaning upon the pommel of 

25 it, gave us the whole history of the Black Prince j; 
conc'ading that, in Sir Richard Baker's opinion, Edward 
the Third was one of the gi'eatest princes that ever sat 
upon the English throne. 

We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tombv 

JO upon which Sir Roger acquainted us that he was the 



m^ ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

first who touched for the evil ; and afterwards Henry the 
Fourth's, upon which he shook his head and told us 
there was fine reading in the casualties of that reign. 

Our conductor then pointed to that monument where 
there is the figure of one of our English kings without an 5 
head; and upon giving us to know that the head, which 
was of beaten silver, had been stolen away several years 
eince, *'Some Whig, I warrant yon," says Sir Roger; 
*'you ought to lock up your kings better; they will 
carry off the body too, if you don't take care." i 

The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen 
Elizabeth gave the knight great opportunities of shining 
and of doing justice to Sir Richard Baker, who, as our 
knight observed with some surprise, had a great many 
kings in him whose monuments he had not seen in the 1 
Abbey. 

For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see the 
knight show such an honest passion for the glory of his 
country, and such a respectful gratitude to the memory 
of its princes. 2 

I must not omit that the benevolence of my good old 
friend, which flows out towards everyone he converses 
with, made him very kind to our interpreter, whom he 
looked upon as an extraordinary man ; for which reason 
he shook him by the hand at parting, telling him that s 
;he should be very glad to see him at his lodgings in 
Norfolk Buildings, and talk over these matters with him 
more at leisure. L. 



XXXI 

SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY 

[No. 335. — Addison. Tuesday, March 25.] 

Respicere exemplar vitae morumque jubebo 
Doctum imitatorem, et veras hinc ducere voces.' 

— Horace. 

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met 

' together at the club, told me that he 'had a great mind 
to see the new tragedy with me, assuring me at the same 
time that he had not been at a play these twenty 

3 years. '*The last I saw, ^' says Sir Roger, ''was the 
'Committee,' which I should not have gone to, neither, 

■ had not I been told beforehand that it was a good 
Church of England comedy." He then proceeded to 
inquire of me who this distressed mother was, and, upon 

[) hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that 
her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a 

' school -boy he had read his life at the end of the diction- 
ary. My friend asked me, in the next place, if there 
would not be some danger in coming home late, in case 

5 the Mohocks should be abroad. ''I assure you," says 
he, "I thought I had fallen into their hands last night, 
for I observed two or three lusty black men that fol- 
lowed me half-way up Fleet Street, and mended their 
pace behind me in proportion as I put on to get away 

^ I'll bid the trained actor look for a model of life and man- 
ners, and thence get truth of speech. 

213 



214 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

from them. Yon must know," continued the knight, 
with a smile, "I fancied they had a mind to hunt me, 
for I remember an honest gentleman in my neighbor- 
hood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the 
Second's time; for which reason he has not ventured 5 
Mmself in town ever since. I might have shown tliem 
very good sport had this been their design; for, as I am 
an old fox-hunter, I should have turned and dodged, 
and have played them a thousand tricks they had never 
seen in their lives before." Sir Roger added that if 10 
^liese gentlemen had any such intention they did not 
•succeed very well in it; "for I threw them out," says 
he, "at the end of Norfolk Street, where I doubled the 
•corner and got shelter in my lodgings before they could 
imagine what was become of me. However," says the 15 
-knight, "if Captain Sentry will make one with us to- 
aGaorrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me 
ta'bout four o'clock, that we may be at the house before it 
is full, I will have my own coach in readiness to attend 
you, for John tells me he has got the fore wheels mended. ' ' :q 

The captain, who did not fail to meet me there, at 
the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that 
he had put on the same sword which he made use 
of at the battle of Steenkirk.^ Sir Roger's servants, and 
among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, 35 
provided themselves with good oaken plants to attend 
their master upon this occasion. When he had placed 
him in his coach, with myself at his left hand, the 

1 A sly jest here. The English, including Captain Sentry, 
had been badly beaten at Steenkirk. 



SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY *215 

. captain before him, and his butler at the head of his 
footmen in the rear, we convoyed him in safety to the 
playhouse, where, after having marched up the entry 
in good order, the captain and I went in with him, and 
5 seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house 
was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up 
and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind 
seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself at the 
sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one 

10 another, and partake of the same common entertainment. 
I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood 
up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper 
centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of 
Pyrrhus, the knight told me that he did not believe the 

15 King of France himself had a better strut. I was, 
indeed, very attentive to my old friend's remarks, 
because I looked upon them as a piece of natural 
criticism; and was well pleased to hear him, at the 
conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could 

20 not imagine how the play would end. One while he 
appeared much concerned for Andromache, and a little 
while after as much for Hermione ; and was extremely 
puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus. 

When Sir Eoger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal 

25 to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the 
ear, that he was sure she would never have him; to 
which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, 
*'You can't imagine, sir, what 'tis to have to do with a 
widow." Upon Pprhus his threatening afterwards to 

30 leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered to 



216 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

himself, *'Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much 
upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of the 
third act, as I was thinking of something else, he 
whispered in my ear, "These widows, sir, are the most 
perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says he, 5 
"you that are a critic, is the play according to your 
dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people 
in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there 
is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know 
the meaning of." 10 

The fourth act very luckily begun before I had time 
to give the old gentleman an answer. "Well," says 
the knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, "I 
suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost." He then 
renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a 15 
praising the widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake 
as to one of her pages, whom at first entering he took 
for Astyanax ; but he quickly set himself right in that 
particular, though, at the same time, he owned he should 
have been very glad to have seen the little boy, "who," so 
says he, "must needs be a very fine child by the account 
that is given of him." 

Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, 
the audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger 
added, "On my word, a notable young baggage." 25 

As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in 
the audience during the whole action, it was natural 
for them to take the opportunity of these intervals 
between the acts to express their opinion of the players 
and of their respective parts. Sir Roger, hearing a ao 



SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY 217 

cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, 
and told them that he thought his friend Pylades was a 
very sensible man: As they were afterwards applauding 
Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time: "And let me 
5 tell you," says he, "though he speaks but little, I like 
the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them." 
Captain Sentry, seeing two or three wags, who sat near 
us, lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and 
fearing lest they should smoke the knight, plucked him 
by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear that 
lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was 
wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives 
of Pyrrhus his death, and, at the conclusion of it, told 
me it was such a bloody piece of work that he was glad 
i it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards 
Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary 
serious, and took occasion to moralize (in his way) upon 
an evil conscience, adding, that Orestes in his madness 
looked as if he saw something. 

As we were the first that came into the house, so we 
were the last that went out of it; being resolved to have 
a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did not care 
to venture among the justling of the crowd. Sir Roger 
went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and we 
guarded him to his lodgings in the same manner that we 
brought him to the playhouse; being highly pleased, for 
my own part, not only with the performance of the 
excellent piece which had been presented, but with the 
satisfaction which it had given to the good old man. 

L. 



XXXII 

WILL HONEYCOMB 
[No. 359.—Budgell. Tuesday, April 22.] 

Torva leaena lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam ; 
Florenteni cytisum sequitur lasciva capella.' 

— Virgil. 

As we were at the club, last night, I observed that 
my friend Sk Roger, contrary to his usual custom, sat 
very silent, and instead of minding what was said by the 
company was whistling to himself in a very thoughtful 
mood, and playing with a cork. I jogged Sir Andi-ew 5 
Freeport, who sat between us, and as we were both 
observing him, we saw the knight shake his head and 
heard him say to himself, "A foolish woman! I can't 
believe it. " Sir Andrew gave him a gentle pat upon 
the shoulder, and offered to lay him a bottle of wine io( 
that he was thinking of the widow. My old friend 
started, and, recovering out of his brown study, told 
Sir Andrew that once in his life he had been in the 
right. In short, after some little hesitation. Sir Roger 
told us, in the fulness of his heart, that he had just 15 
received a letter from his steward, which acquainted 
him that his old rival and antagonist in the county. Sir 
David Dundrum, had been making a visit to the widow. 

* The savage lioness hunts the wolf, the wolf the kid, the 
frisky kid the flowering clover. 



n 



WILL HONEYCOMB 219 

^'However," says Sir Eoger, "I can never think that 
she'll have a man that's half a year older than I am, 
and a noted Republican' into the bargain." 

Will Honeycomb, who looks upon love as his particular 

5 province, interrupting our friend with a jaunty laugh, 
"I thought, Knight," says he, "thou hadst lived 
long enough in the world not to pin thy happiness upon 
one that is a woman and a widow. I think that with- 
out vanity I may pretend to know as much of the 

10 female world as any man in Great Britain, though the 
chief of my knowledge consists in this, that they are 
not to be know^n." Will immediately, with his usual 
fluency, rambled into an account of his own amours. 
"I am now," says he, "upon the verge of fifty," 

15 though, by the way, we all knew he was turned of three 
score. "You may easily guess," continued Will, "that 
I have not lived so long in the world without having 
had some thoughts of settling in it, as the phrase is. To 
tell you truly, I have several times tried my fortune 

10 that way, though I can't much boast of my success. 
"I made my fii'st addresses to a young lady in the 
country; but when I thought things w^ere pretty well 
drawing to a conclusion, her father, happening to hear 
that I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the old put 

s forbid me his house, and within a fortnight after married 
his daughter to a fox-hunter in the neighborhood. 

"I made my next applications to a widow, and 
attacked her so briskly that I thouglit myself within a 

* No doubt a Whig, but probably a very loyal subject of the 
Queen, notwithstanding Sir Roger's prejudice. 



220 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

fortnight of her. As I waited upon her one morning, 
she told me that she intended to keep her ready money 
and jointure in her own hand, and desired me to call 
upon her attorney in Lyon's Inn, who would adjust with 
me what it was proper for me to add to it. I was so 6 
rebuffed by this overture, that I never inquired either 
for her or her attorney afterwards. 

"A few months after, I addressed myself to a young 
lady who was an only daughter and of a good family. I 
danced with her at several balls, squeezed her by the lo 
hand, said soft things, and, in short, made* no doubt of 
her heart; and, though my fortune was not equal to 
hers, I was in hopes that her fond father would not deny 
her the man she had fixed her affections upon. But, 
as I went one day to the house in order to break the is 
matter to him, I found the whole family in confusion, 
and heard, to my unspeakable surprise, that Miss Jenny 
was that very morning run away with the butler. 

"I then courted a second widow, and am at a loss to 
this day how I came to miss her, for she had often 20( 
commended my person and behavior. Her maid, 
indeed, told me one day that her mistress had said she 
never saw a gentleman with such a spindle pair of legs 
as Mr. Honeycomb. 

''After this I laid siege to four heiresses successively, 2g 
and being a handsome young dog in those days, quickly 
made a breach in then* hearts ; but I don't know how it 
came to pass, though I seldom failed of getting the 
daughter's consent, I could never in my life get the old 
people on my side. so 



WILL HONEYCOMB 221 

"I could give you an account of a thousand other 
unsuccessful attempts, particularly of one which I made 
some years since upon an old woman, whom I had 
certainly borne away with flying colors if her relations 

5 had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts 
of England; nay, I believe I should have got her at last, 
had she not been carried off by an hard frost." 

As Will's transitions are extremely quick, he turned 
from Sir Roger, and, applying himself to me, told me 

10 there was a passage in the book^ I had considered last 
Saturday which deserved to be writ in letters of gold ; 
and, taking out a pocket Milton, read the following 
lines which are part of one of Adam's speeches to Eve 
after the fall : r-,. 

15 . "Oh! why did our 

Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven 
With spirits mascuHne, create at last 
This novelty on earth, this fair defect 
Of Nature, and not fill the world at once 

20 With men, as angels, without feminine. 

Or find some other way to generate 
Mankind? This mischief had not then befaH'n, 
And more that shall befall, innumerable 
Disturbances on earth through female snares, 

25 And strait conjunction with this sex : for either 

He never shall find out fit mate, but such 
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake ; 
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain. 
Through her perverseness ; but shall see her gain'd 

30 By a far worse ; or if she love, withheld 

By parents ; or his happiest choice too late 

* The tenth book of Paradise Lost. 



222 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

Shall meet already link'd, and wedlock-bound 
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame ; 
Which infinite calamity shall cause 
To human life, and household peace confound." 

Sir Roger listened to this passage with great attention, 
and desiring Mr. Honeycomb to fold down a leaf at the 
place, and lend him his book, the knight put it up in 
his pocket, and told us that he would read over those 
verses again before he went to bed. X. 



XXXIII 

SIR ROGER AT SPRING GARDEN 

[No. 383. -^Addison. Tuesday, May SO. '^ 

Criminibus debent hortos .^ 

—Juvenal. 

As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a 
subject for my next "Spectator," I heard two or 
three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and 
upon the opening of it, a loud, cheerful voice 

5 inquiring whether the philosopher was at home. 
The child who went to the door answered very innocently 
that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected 
that it was my good friend Sir Roger's voice, and that I 
had promised to go with him on the water to Spring 

10 Garden, in case it proved a good evening. The knight 
put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the 
staircase, but told me that if I was speculating he would 
stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down, I 
found all the children of the family got about my old 

;5 friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating 
gossip, engaged in a conference with him, being 
mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon 
the head, and bidding him be a good child and mind 
his book. 

We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs but we 

^ They bind over their gardens to vice. 

223 



224 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us 
their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked 
about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, 
and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. 
As we were walking towards it, "You must know," 
says Sir Roger, "I never make use of any body to row 
me that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would 
rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ 
an honest man that had been wounded in the Queen's 
service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, 
I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a 
wooden leg." 

My old friend, after having seated himself, and 
trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very 
sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, 
we made the best of our way for Fox-hall. Sir Roger 
obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right 
leg, and, hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with 
many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the 
knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several 
reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, 
that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen;^ 
that we could never be in danger of popery so long as 
we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the 
noblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a 
greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of 
the world; with many other honest prejudices which 
naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman. 

^How do you explain Sir Roger's attitude toward the war^: 
See Introduction, Sections 20 and 31. 



SIR ROGER AT SPRING GARDEN 225 

After some short pause, the old knight, turning about 
his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great 
metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set 
with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple 
on this side Temple Bar. "A most heathenish sight!" 
says Sir Roger; "there is no religion at this end of the 
town. The fifty new churches will very much mend 
the prospect ; but church work is slow, church work is 
slow!" 

I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned, in Sir 
Eoger's character, his custom of saluting everybody that 
passes by him with a good-morrow or good-night. This 
the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, 
though at the same time it renders him so popular among 
all his country neighbors that it is thought to have gone 
a good way in making him once or twice knight of the 
shire. 

He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in 
town, when he meets with anyone in his morning or 
evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that 
passed by us upon the water; but to the knight's great 
surprise, as he gave the good-night to two or three 
young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, 
instead of returning the civility, asked us what queer 
old put we had in the boat, with a great deal of the like 
Thames ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at 
first, but at length, assuming a face of magistracy, 
told us that if he were a Middlesex justice he would 
make such vagrants know that her Majesty's subjects 
were no more to be abused by water than by land. 



226 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

We were now arrived at Spring Garden, which is 
exquisitely pleasant at this time of year. When I con- 
sidered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the 
choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose 
tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could 1 
not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan i 
paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a 
little coppice by his house in the country, which his 
chaplain used to call an aviary of nightingales. "Youij 
must understand," says the knight, "there is nothing^ 
in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your 
nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator! the many moonlight 
nights that I have walked by myself and thought on the 
widow by the music of the nightingales!" Here he 
fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, 
when a mask who came behind him, gave him a gentle 
tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a 
bottle of mead with her. But the knight, being startled I 
at so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be* 
interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, told her that 
she was a wanton baggage, and bid her go about her 
business. 

We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale and 
a slice of hung beef. When we had done eating, our- 
selves, the knight called a waiter to him and bid him 
carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one 
leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the 
oddness of the message, and was going to be saucy, 
upon which I ratified the knight's commands with a 
peremptory look. 



SIR ROGER AT SPRING GARDEN 227 

As we were going out of the garden, my old friend, 
thinking himself obliged, as a member of the quorum, 
to^ animadvert upon the morals of the place, told the 
mistress of the house, who sat at the bar, that h^ should 
5 be a better customer to her garden if there were more 
nightingales and fewer masks. I, 



XXXIV 

THE DEATH OF SIR ROGERS 

[No. 517.— Addison. Tliursday, October 23.] 

Heu pietas! heu prisca fides! ^ 

— Virgil. 

We last night received a Piece of ill News at our Club, 
which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question 
not but my Eeaders themselves will be troubled at the 
hearing of it. To keep them no longer in Suspence, Sir 
EoGER DE Coverlet is dead. He departed this Life at 5 
his House in the Country, after a few Weeks Sickness. 
Sir Andrew Freeport has a Letter from one of his Cor- 
respondents in those Parts, that informs him the old Man 
caught a Cold at the County- Sessions, as he was very 
warmly promoting an Address of his own penning, in 10 
which he succeeded according to his Wishes. But this 
Particular comes from a Whig- Justice of Peace, who was 
always Sir Koger's Enemy and Antagonist. I have 
Letters both from the Chaplain and Captain Sentry which 
mention nothing of it, but are filled with many w 
Particulai's to the Honour of the good old Man. I have 
likewise a Letter from the Butler, who took so much care 

' In this chapter, the editor follows Addison in spelling, 
punctuation and the use of capitals. 
2 Alas! for that old-time piety and faith. 



THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER 229 

of me last Summer when I was at the Knight's House. 
As my Friend the Butler mentions, in the Simplicity of 
his Heart, several Circumstances the others have passed 
over in Silence, I shall give my Reader a Copy of his 
5 Letter, without any Alteration or Diminution. 

'''Honoured Sir^ 

** Knowing that you was my old Master's good Friend, 
I could not forbear sending you the melancholy News of 
his Death, which has afflicted the whole Country, as well 

10 as his poor Servants, who loved him, I may say, better 
than we did our Lives. I am afraid he caught his 
Death the last County Sessions, where he would go to 
see Justice done to a poor Widow Woman, and her 
Fatherless Children, that had been wronged by a neigh- 

15 bouring Gentleman; for you know, Sir, my good Master 
was always the poor Man's Friend. Upon his coming 
home, the first Complaint he made was, that he had lost 
his Eoast-Beef Stomach, not being able to touch a 
Sirloin, which was served up according to Custom ; and 

■20 you know he used to take great Delight in it. From: 
that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still 
kept a good Heart to the last. Indeed, we were once 
in great Hope of his Recovery, upon a kind Message 
that was sent him from the Widow Lady whom he had 

15 made love to the Forty last Years of his Life ; but this 
only proved a Light 'ning before Death. He has 
bequeathed to this Lady, as a token of his Love, a great 
Pearl Necklace, and a Couple of Silver Bracelets set 
with Jewels, which belonged to my good old Lady his 

I 



230 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

Mother: He has bequeathed the fine white Gelding, 
that he used to ride a hunting upon, to his Chaplain, 
because he thought he would be kind to him, and has 
left you all his Books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to 
the Chaplain a very pretty Tenement* with good Lands 5 
about it. It being a very cold Day when he made his 
Will, he left for Mourning, to every Man in the Parish, 
a great Frize-Coat, and to every Woman a black Riding- 
hood. It was a most moving Sight to see him take leave 
of his poor Servants, commending us all for our Fidelity, lol 
whilst we were not able to speak a Word for weeping. 
As we most of us are grown Gray-headed in our Dear 
Master's Service, he has left us Pensions and Legacies, 
which we may live very comfortably upon, the remain- 
ing part of our Days. He has bequeath'd a great deal is' 
more in Charity, which is not yet come to my Knowl- 
edge, and it is iDcremptorily said in the Parish, that he 
has left Mony to build a Steeple to the Church ; for he 
was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two 
Years longer, Coverly Church should have a Steeple to 20! 
it. The Chaplain tells everybody that he made a very 
good End, and never speaks of him without Tears. He 
was buried according to his own Directions, among the 
Family of the Coverhfs, on the Left Hand of his Father, 
Sir Arthur. The Coffin was carried by Six of his 25 
Tenants, and the Pall held up by Six of the Quorum: \ 
The whole Parish follow'd the Corps with heavy Hearts, 
and in their Mourning Suits, the Men in Frize, and the 
Women in Eiding-Hoods. Captain Se:n^try, my Master 's 
JSTephew, has taken Possession of the Hall-House, and 30 



THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER 231 

the whole Estate. When my old Master saw him a little 
before his Death, he shook him by the Hand, and wished 
him Joy of the Estate which was falling to him, desiring 
him only to make good Use of it, and to pay the several 
Legacies, and the Gifts of Charity which he told him he 
had left as Quitrents upon the Estate. The Captain 
truly seems a courteous Man, though he says but little. 
He makes much of those whom my Master loved, and 
shews great Kindness to the old House-dog, that you know 
my poor Master was so fond of. It would have gone to 
your Heart to have heard the Moans the dumb Creature 
made on the Day of my Master's Death. He has ne'er 
joyed himself since; no more has any of us. 'Twas the 
melancholiest Day for the poor People that ever 
happened in Worcestershire. This being all from, 
^''Honoured Sir, 

^^Your most Sorrotvful Servant, 

"Edward Biscuit." 
"P. S. My Master desired, some Weeks before he 
died, that a Book which comes up to you by the Carrier 
should be given to Sir Andretu Freejjort, in his Name." 

This Letter, notwithstanding the poor Butler's Manner 
of writing it, gave us such an Idea of our good old 
Friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry 
Eye in the Club. Sir Andretu opening the Book, found 
it to be a Collection of Acts of Parliament. There was 
in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some Passages 
in it marked by Sir Roger^s own Hand. Sir Andretu 
found that thev related to two or three Points, which he 



232 ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

had disputed with Sir Rogei^ the last time he appeared 
at the Club. Sir Andreiv^ who would have been merry 
at such an Incident on another Occasion, at the sight 
of the old Man's Hand-writing burst into Tears, and 
put the Book into his Pocket. Captain Sentry informs 5 
me, that the Knight has left Rings* and Mourning for 
every one in the Club.^ 0. 

^In 530 Will Honeycomb marries; in 541 the Templar 
abandons poetry, turns to the law, and gives up his com- 
panions; in 544 we see Captain Sentry in possession of Sir 
Roger's estate. Later (in 549) we learn that the clergyman 
has peacefully passed awa}', and Sir Andrew retires from busi- 
ness and from club life, leaving the Spectator alone. Finally 
(in 555) he too makes his bow, and for a year and a half the 
curtain falls.— D. O. S. Lowell, 



CHRONOLOGY 

1672 Steele born (March 12) ; Addison born (May 1). 

1684 Steele enters the Charter house. 

1686 Addison enters the Charter house ; Eustace Budgell born. 

1687 Addison enters Oxford. 

1689 William and Mary crowned. 

1690 Steele enters Oxford. 

1692 Battles of Steenkirk and La Hogue. 

1694 Steele enters the army. 

1698 Queen Mary dies. 

1699 Addison begins his foreign travels. 

1700 Steele seriously wounds Captain Kelly in a duel. 

1701 Steele publishes The Christian Hero. 

1702 King William dies and Queen Anne is crowned. 

1703 Addison concludes his foreign travels. 

1704 Battle of Blenheim. 

1705 Steele marries. 

1706 Addison appointed an under secretary. Steele's first 

wife dies. 

1707 Steele marries Mistress Mary Scurlock. 

1708 Addison enters Parliament. Execution on Steele's 

house for arrears of rent. 

1709 Addison becomes Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of 

Ireland; Budgell becomes Addison's secretary; 
Steele starts the Tatler and Addison becomes a 
contributor. 

1710 Whigs go out of office and Tories take office. 

1711 Tatler discontinued; Spectator begun. Addison buys 

a large estate in Warwickshire. 

1712 The Spectator discontinued. 

833 



234 CHRONOLOGY 

1713 Steele elected a member of Parliament. Steele resigns 
his office under the government and attacks the party 
in power. He is reelected a member of Parliament. 

ITU Steele is attacked in a pamphlet bv Swift and expelled 
from the House of Commons for ''uttering a seditious 
libel." Queen Anne dies and Greorge I. succeeds her. 
In consequence Steele is soon appointed to several 
lucrative offices. The Spectator is revived, probably 
by Budgell, for about three months. 

1715 Steele reelected to Parliament. 

1716 Addison marries Lady Warwick. 

1717 Addison made a Secretary of State. 

1718 Addison retires with a pension ; Steele loses his second 

wife. 

1719 Addison and Steele quarrel. June 17, Addison dies. 
17*2'2 Steele writes his best known play, Tlie Conscious 

Lovers. 
17"24 Steele retires to "Wales. 
17"29 September 1. Steele dies. 
1737 Budgell commits suicide. 



GLOSSARY 



AXD INDEX TO IXTRODUCTIOX 

There are several reasons for this glossary of Addison and Steele's writings 
(1) Special allusions and proper names need explanation. (2; Many words and 
phrases once perfectly intelligib'.e have gone out of fashion in the last two cen- 
turies. (3i Like all well-educated men of their age, both Addison and Steele 
had had a far more rigorous training in Latin than in English grammar, and in 
consequence introduced Latin idioms into their works. (4; In common with their 
contemporaries, both writers used to think often about daily life in an abstract 
sort of way very foreign to the modern mind. (5) Finally, both were men of 
aflFairs as well as men of letters, and often wrote or dictated their essays hurriedly 
and sent them to the press without much revision. Nevertheless, there Is still 
sound sense in Dr. Johnson's famous saying: •■U'hoever wishes to attain an 
English style familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious must giv9 
his days and nights to the study of Addison." 



Above him, more than he; p. 64, 1. 29. 

Abuse of the understanding, the un- 
scrupulous or malicious use of one's 
cleverness or mental ability; p. 63, 
1. 3. 

Act of Parliament, p. 203, l.l9:Act of 
Uniformity, p. 231, 1. 29; acts pre- 
scribing the form of services to be 
used in the Church of England and 
setting forth the need of conformity 
to them. 

Addison, Dorothy; Introduction. Sec- 
tion 25. 

Addison: Introduction, Sections 25-28. 
K 31. 32, 33, 34. 

Address; here probably a formal peti- 
tion of some sort ; p. 22S. 1. 11. 

Agreeable, to be, to agree with; p. 65, 
1. 3. 

Amiable; misused by Steele for 'be- 
loved." " popular " : p. 121. 1. 19. 

Air [of distinction], p. 64. 1. 23. 



An; the use of -an" before the aspirate 
h. as in 'an hundred.' p. 50, 1. 30, or be- 
fore the silent h. as in '■ an humorist," 
p. 81, 1. 17, is now archaic. 

Andromache; Introduction. Section 10, 
footnote. 

Answer; ke agrees with an atiomey 
to ansuer; note that "attorney," not 
" he," is the subject of " answer." The 
meaning Addison gives to this phrase 
would not be justified in modern usage; 
p. 57, 1. 8. 

Answerable, correspondent, suitable; 
p. 172, 1. 24. 

Application of them, how they are ap- 
plied: p. 6-5. 1. 21. Application to 
affairs, application to business; p. 92, 
1. 15. 

Argument, subject matter and general 
method: p. 57. 1. 11. 

Aristotle; the great Greek philosopher 
and Longinus. a minor Greek critic 



235 



236 



GLOSSARY 



and philosopher of the third century, 
were counted in the Spectator's day 
the classic authorities from ancient 
time on the criticism of art. Both 
discussed the proper portrayal of 
sublime passion in poetry and drama. 
Littleton, in the fifteenth century, and 
Coke, who wrote a commentary on 
him in the sixteenth, were the classic 
English authorities on law; p. 57, 11. 3, 
4,5. 

Army; Introduction, Section 21. 

As; as [of] his particular friend; p. 
81, 1. 5: [as] unaccountable as: p. 65, 
1.14. 

Assizes; Introduction, Section 18. 

Assurance, insurance; p. 198. 1. 10. 

Astyanax; Introduction, Section 10, 
footnote. 

Author who published his works. 
Dr. Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Boches- 
ter; p. 121,11. 16, 17. 

Baker's Chronicle; Introduction, 
Section 6. 

Basket hilt, a sword hilt which covers 
the hand and protects it from injury; 
p. 96, 1.2. 

Beau; Introduction, Sections 2, 4, 9. 

Be lengthening, lengthen; p. 107,1. 26; 
be tossing, toss; p. 138, 1. 20. 

Bed ; brought to bed of a judge; soon to 
give birth to one who should finally 
become a judge; p. 60, 1. 9. 

Beforehand; to be beforehand, to be 
supplied with money in advance of 
one's needs; p. 85, 1. 4. 

Black, dark-complexioned; p. 49, 1. 3. 

Blackmore, Sir Richard; Steele's 
eulogy of him is probably not quite 
serious. He was an estimable phy- 
sician but very tedious poet of the 
day, taught school for a time and 
wrote three epic poems of from ten to 
twelve books each. The poem to 
which Steele here refers was an at- 
tempted demonstration in verse of 



the existence and providence of God? 

p. 65, 1. 25. 
Blenheim; Introduction, Section 25. 
Blot, in backgammon a piece or man 

exposed and liable to be taken; p. 52, 

1. 21. 
Bowling-green; Introduction, Sectxon 

17. 
Break, fail; p. 197,1.8. 
Brought, bore; p. 96, 1. 12, 
Buckley's; Buckley was the publishec 

of the Spectator, also of the DailiJ 

Courant, the first daily newspaper in 

England; p. 54,1. 19. 
Budgell; Introduction, Section 34. 
Bully Dawson ; " a noted sharpen 

swaggerer about town, especially in 

Blackfriars purlieus."— OWj/s; p. 56/ 

1.3. 
Button's; Introduction, Sections 12, 26. .' 
By reason, because; p. 55, 1. 16: by 

[reason of] thai custom; p. Ill, 1. 15. 
♦'Campaign, The,** Introduction 

Section 25. 

Cassandra; (1) Introduction, Section 6 
(2) A character in the Iliad, doomed tc 
foretell events and never to be be- 
lieved; p. 181, 1. 22. 

Cast, defeated; p. 157, 11. 23,21: Cast- 
clothes; Sir Boger's opinion on cas 
clothes is very ambiguously ex 
pressed; p. 85, 1. 28. 

••Cato;" Introduction, Section 25. 

Chamber-counsellor, one who give! 
legal advice in his own chamber; 
or olfices but does not address th< 
courts; p. 61, 1.29. 

Change; see Exchange. 

Chaplain; Introduction, Section 19. 

Character, characterization; p. 91, 1.4. 

Charge, expense; p. 196, 1. 24. 

Charles's time, Charles the Second'! 
time, one of great profligacy in thi 
court; p. 69, I. 27. 

Charterhouse; Introduction^ Sectioi 
29. 



GLOSSARY 



237 



Child's; Introduction, Section 12. 

Chocolate Houses; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 12, 

•♦Christian Hero, The;'* Introduc- 
tion, Sections 6, 30. 

Church; Introduction, Sections 14, 19. 

Chymical, chemical; p. 154, 1. 6. 

Circumstance, circumstances; p. 64, 
1.25. 

Citizens; Introduction, Section 13. 

City; Introduction, Section 13, 

Clubs; in the early eighteenth century, 
informal associations of men who 
gathered on stated occasions at some 
inn or coffee-house, usually for politi- 
cal chat as well as for good fellowship. 
The following burlesque rules drawn 
up in one issue of the Spectator betray 
something of their character: " I. 
Every Member at his first evening in 
shall lay down his Two Pence. II. 
Every Member shall fill his Pipe out of 
his own Box. III. If any Member ab- 
sents himself he shall forfeit a Penny 
for the Use of the Club, unless in case 
of Sickness or Imprisonment. . . . 
VIIIo If a Member's Wife comes to 
fetch him Home from the Club, she 
shall speaK to him without the Door." 
P. 54, 1, 16. See also Introduction, Sec- 
tion 25. 

Coaches; Introduction, Section 15. 

Cocoa Tree; Introduction, Section 12. 

Coffee-Houses; Introduction, Sections 
11,12,26. 

Coke; see Aristotle. 

Come at, get a chance at; p, 205, 1. 3. 

Commerce, dealings; p. 135, 1. 14. 

Communicates, shares ; p. 198, 1 17: 
note also the peculiar use on p. 181, 1. 21, 

Compass, due limits, one's means; 
p. 119, 1. 17. 

Complexion, the general appearance of 
one's face or features t a rare use); 
p. 54, 1. 8. 
Concerned for, anxious for, concerned 
about; p, 63,1.5. 



Confidence, temerity; p. 103, 1, 24, 

Converse, associate familiarly; Con- 
versed in the world, having mixed 
in the world; p.l47, 1. 20. 

Correspondence, dealings; p. 90, 1.22. 

Country dance; this dance, called the 
"Roger de Coverley," was similar to 
the present Virginia Reel (Country 
•^contra) ; p. 55, i. 4. See also Introduc- 
tion, Section 8. 

Country gentleman. Introduction, 
Sections 16, 17, 18, 

Cowley, Abraham; a diplomatist, poet 
and essayist of the generation just 
previous to Addison and Steele, In 
his own day his verse was regarded as 
a model of cultivated poetry, and his 
essays must still be '•egarded as a model 
of correct and simple prose. He aimed 
to make "moderation in all things* 
attractive to his readers. " Not he 
who blindly follows all his Pleasures," 
he asserted, " is the true Gentleman, 
but he who rationally guides them.'* 
" If I want Skill and Force to restrain 
the Beast that I ride upon, tho' I 
bought it and call it my own, yet in 
the truth of the matter I am at that 
time rather his man than he my 
horse" . o. 121 , 1. 13 

Cried on. extolled, "praised to the 
skies J, 171, 1 22. 

Cross, tc aaake the sign of the cross on; 
p, 181,i 4, 

Cry, a pack of hounds, so called from 
the fact that they were often selected 
so that the voices of the entire pack 
would blend in a pleasant harmony; 
p. 129, 1. 28. 

Customs, custom-house duties; p. 198, 
1. 11. 

Dancing; Introduction, Section 8. 

Dantzic; the sickness at Dantzic re- 
ferred to here was a return in 1709 of 
the same sort of plague which had de- 
vastated London in 1665. From 1683 te 



238 



GLOSSARY 



1704 practically no cases of the plague 
existed in eastern Europe; in the latter 
year, however, it began to spread 
again; p. 209,1. 14. 

Day in liondon: Introduction, Section 
11. 

Defendant's witnesses; Sir Roger 
made a tell-tale slip of the tongue, 
for the plaintiff's witnesses would 
naturally come first; p. 113 1. 17. 

Demonstrative, capable of demonstra- 
tion; p. 151, 1. 2. 

Desperate, causing despair in others; 
p. 115; 1. 8. 

Dictated [to] ; the indirect object of the 
active voice is here made the subject 
of the passive; p. 164, 1 29. 

Dignity, an honoxable office, rank, or 
title; an honor; p 50, 1. 13. 

Dipped, involved in debt; mortgaged 
(archaic slang) ; p. 119, 1. 2. 

Discoveries, disclosures; p. 64, 1. 10. 
Note also the use of the verb discover 
in this same sense. 

Distinction sake, distinction's sake; 
p. 126, 1. 5. 

Distrest Mother, Introduction, Sec- 
tion 10. 

Dobson, Austin; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 30, footnote, and Section 33. 

Dryden; Introduction, Sections 6, 12. 

Dyer's Letter; Introduction, Section 
23. 

Easy, comfortable; p. 60, 1. 15. 

Economy, household management; p. 
52, 1. 19. 

Either; according to modern usage 
either is misplaced on p. 141, 1. 1, and 
p 171, 1. 16. 

Engaged, attached to; committed In 
his affections to (not used in the 
modern sense of betrothed or prom- 
ised); p. 209,1.27. 

Engine, apparatus, machine; p. 123, 
1.13. 

Entertain [the reader]; p. 192, 1 28. 



Equal, equable; p. 85, 1. 1. 

Equipage; a comprehensive term in- 
cluding one's dress, retinue, and 
establishment; that part of one's 
belongings which is used about or 
in the neighborhood of one's person 
for the display of one's rank or wealth , 
(obsolete) ; p. 64, 1. 26. On p. 190, 1. 11. j 
sarcastically applied to a single at- 
tendant. 

Esteem; in the old knighVs esteem, 
very much esteemed by the oldi 
knight; p. 81,1. 13. Esteemed, merely* 
esteemed; p.56, 1 17. 

Eugene, Prince; Introduction, Sec-' 
tion 21. 

Evil, scrofula, supposed to be curable s 
by the touch of a sovereign's hand, 
or even by the touch of the sover- 
eign's costume; p. 212, 1.1. 

Exceeding, exceedingly; p. 101, 1. 18. 

Except [for] ; p. 142, 1 9. 

Exchange; Introduction, Sections 9, 13. 

Exert the justice of the peace, exer- 
cise his authority as justice of the 
peace; p. 180,1. 4. 

Fable; See Shakspere's Coriolanus, i. 1; 
p. 194, 1. 5. 

Fans; Introduction, Section 5. 

Fielding, Beau Robert, Introduc- 
tion, Section 9. 

Figure, make a; (1) produce a marked 
effect; p. 58, 1. 6; ( 2) occupy a distin- 
guished position; p. 59, 1. 25. 

Find [it] ; p. 133, 1. 8. 

Fine, see Tenement. 

Fleer, laugh mockingly at; p. 192, 1. L 

Fops; Introduction, Sections 2, 4, 9. 

Forbes, Lord; Introduction, Section 12.: 

Fortune; heiress-hunting was so com- 
mon in the eighteenth century that 
tlie heiress was looked upon not only 
as having but as being a fortune; p.i 
141, 1. 28. Fortune was tiie only dif- 
ference [that there had been] be- 
tween tliem; between the servants on 



GLOSSARY 



239 



the one hand and the masters in their 
former glory on the other. In other 
words, the servants emulated and 
equalled their masters in character 
and fineness of feeling; p. 87, 1. 16. 

Four shillings in the pound, the 
amount of the tax on land at the 
time; p. 120, 1. 6. 

Fox-hail, Vauxh all, a customary desig- 
nation of Spring Garden; p. 224, 1.16. 
See Spring Garben. 

Frame, structure; nicer frame, finer, 
more delicate structure; p. 151, 1. 14. 

Furze brake, thicket of furze; p. 130, 
1. 30. 

Gallantry, courtliness of behavior; p. 
66, 1. 23, 

Gallery; every great English house 
has a gallery of family portraits; 
p. 94, 1. 1. 

Game law; Introduction, Section 16, 
footnote, and Section 18. 

Gazette; Introduction, Section 30. The 
oflacial publication of the British gov- 
ernment, containing all important 
official appointments and court hon- 
ors. 

Generation; in their generation, after 
their kind; according to their lights; 
the limitations of their species 
being considered (Luke xvi. 8) ; p. 153, 
1.10, 

Gibbets; Introduction, Section 15. 

Give myself up to, yield my judgment 
to; p.103, 1. 12, 

Go-cart, "a small framework with cast- 
ors or rollers and without a bottom, 
in which children learn to walk with- 
out danger of falling."— Cenfurj/ Dic- 
tionary; p. 96, 1. 10. 

Grecian, The; Introduction, Section 12. 

Grottoes; Introduction, Section 7. 

Guelphs, adherents of the people and 
the Popes in their contests with the 
German Emperor and the aristocracy 
in the Middle Ages. The GhibeUines 



were adherents of the Emperors; 
p. 172 1. 30. 

Habits; (1) styles orkindsof costumes; 
p. 60, I. 21: (2) Costumes, as in the 
modern phrase "riding-habits"; p. 
106, 1. 9. 

Half pike, a short pike carried by offi- 
cers of infantry : p. 190, 1. 9. 

Halifax, Lord; Introduction, Section 
32, footnote. 

Having destroyed, he having de- 
stroyed; p. 129, 1. 9. The same error 
in syntax occurs again later in the 
volume. 

Head-dress; Introduction, Section 5, 
footnote. 

Hector; Introduction, Section 10, foot- 
note. 

Hermione; Introduction, Section 10, 
footnote. 

Him, refers to " Scarecrow"; p. 64, 1. 29. 

His, I^rrhxis fiL'i; a mistaken and 
pedantic form for Pyrrhus's; p. 215, 
1.29, 

Humor; (I) animal fluid. The four 
cardinal humors of the ancient physi- 
cians were blood, choler (yellow bile)^ 
phlegm and melancholy (black bile), 
regarded by them as determining by 
their conditions and proportions a per- 
son's physical and mental qualities 
and disposition; p. 124, 1. 9. Hence 
(2) one's disposition as distinguished 
from that of other people, one's mood; 
p. 56, 1. 11. (3) oddity of behavior; 
p. 55, 1. 12. (4) humors; whimsical 
inclinations, tastes founded upon 
temperament, not upon reason. 

Humorists, persons acting upon their 
own whims or humors rather than 
conventionally; persons having an 
odd way of their own; p. 60, 1. 10. 

Hungary water, a popular compound 
of spirits of wine, lavender and rose' 
mary, which was used both as a lotion, 
and as smelling salts are used to- 



240 



GLOSSARY 



day; indeed to many ladies it was 
a sort of cure-all;, p. 76, 1. 7. 

Hunting; Introduction, Sections 16, 17. 

Hunts, tiunts with; p. 90. 1. 14. 

Husband, a frugal person, one who 
manages his own or another's prop- 
erty with prudence; p. 86, 1. 14. 

Ill, bad; p. 64, 1. 5. 

Impertinent, irrelevant; p. 104, 1. 30. 

Impertinently, unduly; p. 197, 1. 14. 

Indifferent, immaterial; p. 106, 1. 12. 

Indifferent actions, actions neither 
obviously moral nor obviously im- 
moral; p. 65, 1. 2. 

Inner Temple; see Inns of Court. 

Inns of Court: the four Inns of Court 
(p. 70, 1. 5) in London were (and 
indeed, still are) four societies or col- 
leges of lawyers and law-students, 
which had the sole right of con- 
ferring the degree of barrister at law. 
These four Inns were named, from 
the halls of residence and meeting 
places of their members, Lincoln's 
Inn and Gray's Inn (anciently be- 
longing to the Earls of Lincoln and 
Gray) and the Inner (p. 56, 1. 27) 
and Middle Temple (once the prop- 
erty of the Knights Templars). A 
member of either the Inner or Middle 
Temple was called a Templar. New 
Inn (p. 57, 1. 25) was attached to the 
Middle Temple and was known as an 
inn of chancery. Pleasant walks and 
gardens were connected with these 
Inns, and Will Honeycomb and Sir 
Roger enjoyed them. Lincoln's- 
Inn-Fields (p. 64, 1. 9) was a pub- 
lic square neighboring Lincoln's 
Inn. "These celebrated fields were 
frequented froii^ a very early period 
down to the year 1735 by wrestlers, 
bowlers, cripples, beggars and idle 
boys." 

Inns; Introduction, Section 15. 

Intelligence, news ; p. 189, 1. 17. 



Intentively, attentively; p. 65, 1. 8. 

Interest, whatever makes for one's 
political or social advantage or wel- 
fare; one's prestige, following, back- 
ing and support; p. 173, 1. 5. 

Jack, a pike: p. 89, 1 11. 

Jetting, jutting out (now obsolete); 
p. 95, 1 3. 

Johnson, Dr.; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 3. 

Jonathan's; Introduction, Section 12, 

Journals; Introduction, Section 23 

Judgment, a token of divine displeas- 
ure; p. 170,1. 11. 

Justice of the Peace; Introduction, 
Section 18. 

Kelly, Captain; Introduction, Section 

30. 
Kennels; Introduction, Section 2. 
Kit-cat Club; Introduction, Section 25. 
Knight of the shire; Introduction, 

Section 18. 

Labored, formerly used transitively; 
still used in the phrase " to labor a 
point"; p. 125, 1.8, 

Laertes; in the eighteenth century, one 
used classic names at convenience, as 
we should use Smith, Jones or Robin- 
son. Laertes was the father of Ulysses 
and Irus was a beggar of Ithaca re- 
markable for his gluttony. By his 
choice of names Steele betrays his 
own sympathies ; p. 120, 1. 3. 

La Hogue, a naval victory won by 
the English and the Dutch over 
the French. The English pursued the 
French ships into the harbor and 
annihilated them there; p. 224, 1. 18. 

Landed Estates; Introduction, Sec- 
tions 13, 14. 

League, a league formed in France a 
few years after the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew to oppose the Hugue- 



GLOSSARY 



241 



aots and Henry of Navarre; p. 173, 
1.1. 

Leonora; Introduction, Section 6. 

Lincoln's -Inn -Fields; see Inns of 
Court. 

Little Britain [street]; p. 54. 1.20. 

Littleton; see Aristotlk. 

Loaden, archaic form for '* loaded"; 
p. 127, 1.12. 

Loclce; Introduction, Section 6. 

London Streets; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 2. 

Longinus; see Aristotle. 

tfade, trained; made a hunting dog of; 
p. 90, 1.18. 

ffade no doubt of her heart, made 
myself confident of possessing her 
heart; p. 220, 1. 11. 

Harch 17 10-11; until 1752, the legal 
year began in England on March 25, 
though the year as it was custom- 
arily reckoned began on January 1. 
In dates previous to 1752, occurring 
between January 1 and March 24 In- 
clusive, two years are often given, the 
first being "old style" or the legal 
date, the second "new style" or the 
popular date; p. 49, 1. 1. 

lark, thirteen shillings four pence; 
p. 202, 1. 2. 

larlborough, Duke of; Introduction, 
Sections 21, 25. 

[ask, a woman wearing a mask; p. 226, 
1.16. 

le; the indirect object, represented in 
Latin by the " dative of advantage 
or disadvantage." Other instances of 
the same locution can be found in 
these papers; p. 82, 1. 4. 

lean, vulgarly lacking in the quali- 
ties befitting one's rank (not neces- 
sarily underhand) ; p. 85, L 13, 

[easure of a Pyramid ; taken of 
coui-se by trigonometry. The whole 
passage is a good-natured hit at a 
noted geometrician and astronomer 



of the time who attempted to estab- 
lish the antiquity of English weights 
and measures by evidences drawn 
from one of the pyramids; p. 51, 1. 17. 

Mechanic being, mechanism with no 
Intelligence or initiative of its own. 
Is a mechanic being; is to be a piece 
of mechanism; p. 122, 1. 9. 

Medicina Gymnastica; written by 
Francis Fuller; p 126,1.27. 

Middlesex; a large portion of London 
is in Middlesex County; p. 225. 1. 28. 

Mode; (1) Prevalent fashion or style; 
p. 55, 1. 13: (2) fashionable behavior; 
p. 147, 1. 13. (Very common uses of the 
word in Addison's day.) 

Modish, fashionable; p. 147, 1. 1. 

Mohocks; Introduction, Section 3. 

Moll White; an act was still in 
force in Addison's day decreeing 
death to whoever dealt with evil 
spirits or invoked them, whereby 
any persons were killed or lamed, 
etc. Under this law two women 
were executed in Northampton just 
before the Spectator began to be pub- 
lished. Not long after (1716), a Mrs. 
Hicks and her daughter were hanged 
at Huntingdon for selling their souls 
to the devil, making their neigh- 
bors vomit pins, and raising a storm 
so that a certain ship was almost lost. 
•^Condensed from W. H. Wills A popu- 
lar test for discovering whether an 
old hag were a witch or not was to toss 
her into a pond. If she floated, she 
was a witch. Any cat or dog she might 
own was believed to be the devil in 
disguise, and any broomstick or 
switch she might own was supposed 
to be the carriage on which she rode 
on her nightli- errands. Witches, how- 
ever, varied in character. Black 
witches could do nothing but evil, 
white witches, though prankish at 
times, could do no real harm, and 
gray witches could work both good 



24^ 



GLOSSARY 



and evil. According to some super- 
stitions, Lapland was overrun with 
witches, a fact which explains the 
reference to it in No. 117 of the Spec- 
tator; pp. 135-139. 

3ionmoutli, Duke of, the scapegrace 
son of Charles II., likened by Dryden 
to Absalom; p. 61, 1. 2 " The queen 
. . it seems, was at Windsor at 
the late St. George's feast there, and 
the Duke of Monmouth dancing with 
her with his hat in his hand, the king 
came in and kissed him, and made 
him put on his hat, which everybody 
took notice of."— Pepys's Diary, April 
27, 1663. 

Murrain, a disease affecting domestic 
animals, especially cattle. Murrain 
to her, plague take her; p. 113,1. 13. 

Mrs., abbreviation for "mistress," 
formerly applied as a title of respect 
to any woman or girl, whether mar- 
ried or unmarried; p. 189, 1 9. 

Namby-pamby; Introduction, Section 
10. 

Nature, capacity; p. 81, 1; 9. 

Nature, Love of; Introduction; Section 
7. 

Navy; Introduction, Section 21. 

Near, nearly; p. 66, 1. 22. 

New Inn, see Inns of Cottbt. 

Newsletter; Introduction, Section 23. 

Newspapers; Introduction, Section 23. 

Nice in this particular, fastidious in 
this respect: p. 129, 11. 29, 30. 

Night in London; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 3. 

Novel, a short story after the Spanish or 
Italian manner, with love as its mo- 
tive; p, 162, 1. 23. 

Oblige, fprce; p. 61,1. 28. 

Occasion, field for conversation; sub- 
ject; p.86,1.2. 

Of. (1) about; p. 99,1. 1; (2) of [being]; 
p. 50, 1. 23; (3) Of [having] ; p. 63, 1. 6. 



Offices, duties or services ; p. 98, 1 8. 

Officious, ready to be of service; obll-' 
ging; now generally used in an invidi- 
ous sense; p. 90. 1. 19. 

Ogilby's Virgil and other books men* 
tioned in Chapter Vr; Introduction, 
Section 6, 

Oldfleld, Mrs.; Introduction, Section 9. 

One or otlier ; modern usage would re- 
quire "'one or another"; p. 70, 1. 24. 

Opened, barked on view or scent of the 
game; p. 131, 1. 29. 

Order; in order to, with a view to; 
p. 163, 1. 22. 

Ordinary, ordinarily; p. 217, 1. 16. 

Orestes; Introduction, Section 10, foot*: 
note. 

Others; this word is here not only re-: 
dundant but illogical; p. 119, 1. 24. 

Out; to print myself out; to manifest 
myself clearly in print; it does nob 
mean to keep on printing until I have 
nothing left to say; p. 53. 1. 13. 

Out of; (i) from; made a sermon oit* 
of, preached a sermon from; p. 201J 
1. 29: (2) away from; take a brute oit* 
of, deprive a brute of; p. 153, 1. 13. 

Out of Nature, out of harmony with 
nature; unnatural; p. 121, 1. 11. 

Pad, a horse with an easy pace; p. 
1. 11. 

Pamphleteers ; Introduction, Section ! 

Particular; (1) peculiar, odd; p. 77, 1. 8r 
(2) special; p. 114, 1. 25: (3) occasion- 
ally used as a mere intensive; p. 72,1 
1.24: (4) for the phrase "particulaij 
persons," p. 65, 1. 16, a modern writeij 
would use "individuals": (5) detailed; 
p. 103, 1. 4. 

Particularities, peculiarities, humors; 
p. 107, 1. 25. 

Parts, 'abilities, faculties. The word is 
not much used in this sense to-day; 
p. 50, 1. 25. 

Pass, impose; p. 65, 1. 24. 

Patches ; Introduction, Section 5. 



GLOSSARY 



243 



Patron; (1) In the first half of the 
eighteenth century men depended for 
advancement more avowedly than to- 
day upon the political and social in- 
fluence of the great, that is, upon 
wealthy noblemen, statesmen or eccle- 
siastics; p. 59, 1. 27: (2) one who ap- 
points to an ecclesiastical office; p. 109, 
1.21. 

Petticoats; Introduction, Sec. 5. 

Phillips, Ambrose; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 10. 

Piece, of a, all in one piece; p. 136, 1. 28. 

Plants, cudgels: p. 214, 1 26. 

Play, The; Introduction, Sections 8, 9, 
10. 

Pleasant upon, good-naturedly Jocose 
or merry at the expense of; p. 80, 1. 
25. 

Pole; Introduction, Section 17. 

Polite; (1) fashionable; slcilled in the 
conventional usages of society; pol- 
ished; p. 65,1. 19: (2) obliging, cour- 
teous, as in the phrase a "polite 
country squire"; p. 147, 1. 21. 

Pope; Introduction, Section 26. 

Pope's Procession; an anti-Catholic 
demonstration celebrated eveiy seven- 
teenth of November by the Whig pop- 
ulace; p. 204. 1. 3. The year Sir Roger 
de Coverley went up to London 
to see Prince Eugene, the proces- 
sion threatened to assume extra- 
ordinary proportions, for the Whigs 
were violently agitated by fears that 
peace would be made with France 
and that the Tories were plotting to 
restore the Roman Catholic Stuarts 
to the throne in place of Queen Anne 
On the night of the sixteenth, the 
Tories raided Drury Lane theatre 
and carried oflF all the Whig effigies 
and paraphernalia. 

Postman, a journal edited by a French 
Protestant, Fonvive; it had some 
reputation for its foreign news and 
correspondence; p. 51, 1.30. 

Postulatums, assumptions; p. 172, 1 18. 



Powell; Introduction, Section 8. 

Prejudice of education, the bias oj 
bent of mind produced by one's trairv 
ing or education; p. 101, 11. 25, 26. 

Prentice, be apprenticed to a master 
who should teach him a trade. To 
send the coachman's grand.son " to 
prentice" required not only the exer 
else of Sir Roger's influence, taut 
probably a money payment from him 
as well; p. 87, 1. 24. 

Present laws, laws regulating man ir* 
this life, before liis death and resur 
rection; p. 124, 1, 17. 

Pretty instance, a pleasing and apt 
illustration. (The use of the word, 
"pretty" in this sense is now somewhat 
pedantic); p. 67, 1. 6. 

Principle, political belief or synnv 
pathy: p. 178, 1, 3. In a different prin 
cipie. considered in the light of the fact 
that his political principles are differ- 
ent from one's own; p. 171, 1 27. We 
look at a political opponent, Addison 
says in effect, not as he really is, but 
as if he were surrounded and envel- 
oped by his principles; and those 
principles we never see fairly, because 
we looli at them through our own 
prejudices. A man so seen looks dis- 
torted to us, like the stick which wo 
thrust into water and see through 
two different mediums, air and water. 
Addi-son's flgure of speech is not at all 
consistent. 

Proper, appropriate, apt; p. 05, 1. fl. 

Proper scenes, appropriate places; 
p. 10, 1. 7. 

Prospect, to have a prospect of pub- 
lic good, to be done in the expecta- 
tion that it will benefit the public; 
p. 65, 1. 1. 

Prue; Introduction, Section 32, foot- 
note. 

Punch and Judy; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 8. 

Put up, started up, started from its 
cover or concealment: p. 132. 1, 4 



244 



GLOSSARY 



Pyrrhus; Introduction, Section 10, foot- 
note. 

Quail-pipe, a pipe for imitating and 
alluring quail; p. 92, 1. 6. 

Quality; (1) family connections; de- 
scent, rank or social repute of one's 
family, especially noble rank, good 
blood; p. 71. 1. 5; (2; class; p. 63, 
1.4. 

Quarter Sessions; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 18. 

Quick, active, nimble; p. 63, 1, 19. 

Quit rents; so called because by the 
payment of them the payer gets quit 
and free of all other service; p. 231, 
1.6. 

Quorum; Introduction, Section 18. 



Rallies the soldier's honor, jests at 
the soldier's sense of honor; p. 195, 
1. 30. 

Recovered herself from one eye to 
another, from exchanging glances 
with one person, turned away as if 
recollecting herself, only to exchange 
glances with another; p. 113, 1. 11. 

Relapsed, is relapsed, has relapsed; 
p. 148, 1. 30 

Resolved, was resolved, had resolved; 
p. 51, 1. 7. 

Rid the tournament over, rode over 
the tournament or tilt yard; p. 95, 
1. 20. 

Ridiculous, made the subject of ridi- 
cule (a strained use of the word; ; p. 67, 
1.3. 

Riglit we had of taking place, etc., 
right of way we had over all vehicles 
coming from London since we were 
going up to London; p. 192. 1. 25. 

Ringing; Addison strains here for a 
pun on dumb-bell; p. 127, 1. 5. 

Rings and mourning, p. 232, 1. 6. A 
legacy quite in accordance with the 
custom of the times, as one may judge 
from the following quotations: "Mr. 



Pepys has been for neare forty years 
so much my particular friend that 
Mr. Jackson sent me compleat mourn- 
ing, desiring me to be one to hold up 
the pall at his magnificent obsequies, 
but my indisposition hindered me 
from doing him this last office." 
"Afternoon at the Funeral of my ex- 
cellent and dear friend, Dr. Thomas 
Gale, Dean of York, who was interred 
with great solemnity: lay in state, 
200 rings (besides scarfs to bearers 
and gloves to all) given in the room 
where I was, which yet could not con- 
tain the company."— Dta;'?/ of Ealph 
Thoresby, May 26, 1703, April 15. 1702. 

Rochester, Lord, and Sir George 
Etherege, p. 56, 11. 1, 2. '• Both ' fine 
gentlemen ' who lived fast lives. The 
first was a favorite of Charles II. He 
died at thirty-one, confessing to 
Bishop Burnet that he hadfor'fi;-e 
years been continually drunk\ The 
second was a witty writer of some 
ability {Spec. No. 51), but he fell down 
stairs while intoxicated and broke his 
neck. Perhaps it was well that Sir 
Boger became very serious for a year 
and a half."— Z). O. S. Lowell. 

Romp, a boisterous girl, a hoyden; 
p. 96, 1. 27. 

Rose [tavern], a haunt of dramatic 
authors, notorious for its scenes of vio- 
lence. Here, seven months after the 
date of this paper (No. 2), the seconds 
arranged the duel in which the Duke 
of Hamilton and the unsavory Lord 
Mohun were both mortally wounded; 
p. 57, 1.28. 



St. Anne's Lane; so named from a 
church in the vicinity dedicated to the 
mother of the Virgin and called in her 
honor St. Anne's; p. 169, 1. 7. 

St. James; Introduction, Section 12. 

Salutes, salutations; p. 54,1. 4. 

Same condition [as I am]; p. 116, U 



\ 



GLOSSARY 



245 



Saracen's Head, p. 160, 1. 9; "When 
our countrymen came home from 
fighting with the Saracens, and were 
beaten bj' them, they pictured them 
with big, terrible faces (as you still 
see the sign of the Saracen's Head is ), 
when in truth they were like other 
men. But this they did to save their 
own credit."— iSeideyi's Table Talk. 

Says; for '-said" (now only vulgar); 
p. 213, 1. 15. 

Scanderbeg; a celebrated combatant 
against the Turks; he died in 1467; 
p. 201, 1, 11. "When Scanderbeg 
Prince of Epirus was dead, the Turks, 
who had but too of ten felt the Force 
of his Arm in the Battles he had won 
from them, imagined that by wearing 
a Piece of his Bones near their Heart 
they should be animated with a Vigour 
and Force like to that which inspired 
him when living.''''— Spectator. 

Seat, a dwelling and its grounds as in 
the modern phrase "country seat"; 
p. 88,1. 13. 

Securing, making secure; p. 203, 1. 19. 

Sensations, physical sensations; p. 64, 
1.13. 

Settled; here used figuratively. Sir 
Roger means simply that the walk 
was so closely associated in his mind 
with the widow as to seem to him to 
pertain to her, to belong to her; p. Ill, 
1.9. 

Service; see With his service. 

Shall; (1) a nice use of the word to de- 
note customary or inevitable action; 
p. 147,1. 21. (2) Shall should be used 
as Lhe future auxiliary, wherever it 
can be used without appearing in any 
way assertive cr dictatorial. Is the 
use on p. 196, 1. 26, justifiable? 

Sheriff of the county; Introduction, 
Section 18. 

Slash, a cut in the stuff of which a 
garment is made to show a brighter 
colored material underneath— a de- 
vice much used in the sixteenth and 



early part of the seventeenth cen* 
tury; p. 97,1. 1. 

Smoke, quiz (old slang) ; p. 217, 1. 9. 

Smoky, keen at detection (old slang); 
p. 192,1. 14, 

So long; tautological here; p. 157, 1. 20. 

Softest, kindliest; p. 69, 1. 3. 

Soho Square, a fashionable quarter of 
the city when Sir Roger visited it; 
later he went to quieter lodgings in 
Norfolk Street; p. 55, 1. 15. 

Sonneteer; Sir Roger evidently con- 
siders literary work a very lackadai- 
sical affair: p. 97, 1. 5. See Introduc- 
tion, Section IS and footnote. 

Species, the human species; p. 125, 
1.12. 

Spectator, The: Introduction, Sections 
1,24,25, 30,35. 

Speculations; (1) observations on, or 
investigations of, truth; p. 150,1.11: 
(2) used also to denote the successive 
numbers or issues of the Spectator; 
p. 69,1. 1. 

Spleen, ill-humor, low spirits; melau' 
choly; p. 127,1. 19. 

Spring, to start up or rouse; p. 186, 1. 2. 

Spring Garden; "A prettily cultivated 
plantation, laid out with walks and 
arbors: the nightingale sang in the 
trees; wild roses could be gathered 
in the hedges and cherries in the 
orchard". It became a fashion to 
stroll in the garden alleys and eat 
a lobster or a syllabub. Rude gal- 
lants from the city bent on escapades, 
would thrust themselves into the sup- 
per arbors and in the close walks of 
the garden; " the windings and turn- 
ings in the little wilderness were so 
intricate that the most experienced 
mothers often lost themselves in look- 
ing for their daughters." Eighteenth 
century literature is full of adventures 
that took place in these and similar 
pleasure grounds; p. 223. 1. 9. 

Squire; Introduction, Section 18. 

Squire's; Introduction, Section 12. 



246 



GLOSSARY 



staked, impaled on a stake or fence; 

p. 129, 1. 20. 
Started, p. 185, 1. 18: good starts: p. 65. 

1.8; bunting terms. 
Steele; iBtfoduction, Sections 6, 12, 27, 



Jteeukirk, a signal defeat of the Eng- 
lish king, Augusta, 1692, by the French 
army, though he had at first surprised 
and routed them. To commemorate 
the celerity with which the French 
generals liad dressed themselves for 
battle the Parisian fops wore their 
cravats in apparent disorder and 
called them Steenkirks. The English 
fops soon imitated their example. 
The battle therefore had some social 
distinction; p. 214, 1. 24. 

Stomach, disposition, especially a 
haughty disposition; p. 119, 1. 4. 

Stone-horse, a stallion (archaic and 
colloquial) ; p. 129, 1, 20. 

Stop-hounds. "When one of these 
hounds found the scent, he gave no- 
tice of his good fortune by deliberately 
squatting to impart more effect to 
his deep tones and to get wind for a 
fresh start."— IK. H. Wills. The siop- 
hound was actually used only in stag- 
hunting; p. 129, 1. 25. 

Stories of a cock and a bull, cock and 
bull stories; p. 188,1. 22 

Streets; Introduction, Section 2. 

Street signs; Introduction, Section 2 

Stripped; have his livery taken oflf 
him. lose his place, be dismissed; 
p. 85, 1. 12. 

Stuarts; Introduction, Section 20. 

Such a, a certain (a colloquial phrase); 
p. 98, 1. 18. 

*« Supplement," a periodical news- 
paper; p. 204, 1. 29. 

Swift, Jonathan; Introduction, Sec- 
lions 11, 19, 26. 

Sydenham, Thomas, from 1660 to 1670, 
the chief physician of London; p. 126, 
1.23. 



Tansy, p. 116, 1. 21 ; " Take about a dozea 
new-laid eggs, beat them up with three 
pints of cream, strain them through a 
coarse linen cloth, and put in of the 
strained juices of endive, spinach, sor-i 
rel and tansy each three spoonfuls;, 
half a grated nutmeg, four ounces ofi 
line sugar, and a little salt and roserj 
water. Put it, with a slight laying! 
of butter under it, into a shallow) 
pewter dish, and bake it in a moder-d 
ately heated oven. Scrape over it loafi 
sugar, sprinkle rose-water, and serve 
it up."— ^ Closet 0/ Harities, 1706. 

Target of the gentlemen, theshield;ti 
came within the target, struck thel 
shield with his lance; p. 95,11. 17,18. 

Tatler, The; Introduction, Sections 30j^ 
31. 

Templar; see Inns of Court, also In*) 
troduction. Section 9. 

Temple Bar, a famous gateway int 
London dividing Fleet Street from thej 
street called the Strand; p. 225, 1. 5. 

Tenement, a piece of property; p. 230.i 
1. 5. Tenement falls: often in the 
law of this period, when a tenanfcj 
wished to turn over the lease of his| 
property (or tenement as it was legallyj 
called) to another man, he was obliged 
to pay a sum of money or fee (legally! 
called a fine) to the landlord for the 
privilege. This money Sir Rogei 
often used to establish or settle old 
servants comfortably for life. Wheu 
so used Steele designates the money 
a "settlement"; p. 86, 1. 18. 

Terminates his satisfactions . . . 
within the supply of his own ne- 
cessities, is perfectly happy so long 
as his own selfish desires are supplied, 
p. 64, 1. 17. 

Tliat; such . . . that == such . „ . 
as; p. 176,1. 2. 

That [passage] of Martial; a common 
ellipsis in the days of the Spectator; 
p. 117, 1. 7. 



GLOSSARY 



Theatre, The; Introduction, Sections 
8,9,10. 

This way, in this way; p. 129. 1. 14. 

Those kings; kings mentioned by Jo- 
sephus in his Antiquities just before he 
reaches the passage which Addison 
quotes; p. 105, 1. 1. 

Till ; either "so long" should be omitted 
in this sentence or " that " should be 
substituted for " till "; p. 157, 1. 21. 

Tilt Yard Coffee-House; Introduction, 
Section 12. 

Tithe-stealers; tithes are a tax levied 
on the agricultural produce of a 
parish for the support of its clerg>'. 
A tithe-stealer is one who wrongfully 
withholds part of the tax; p. 109, 1. 18. 

To; used much more freely in the 
eighteenth century than today, as 
in tbe following cases; to a point, 
about a point: p. 53, 1. 24; to a visit, 
ou the way to making a visit: p. 50, 
1. 21; takes no/ice to you, calls your 
attention to: p. 60, 1. 30; oblige him 
to, force him into: p. 61, 1. 28; 
smelling, notifying, fronting to, smell- 
ing, notifying, fronting; p. 188,1.16; 
p. 189,1.1; p. 196,1.17. 

Tobacco-stopper, a contrivance for 
pressing down tobacco in a pipe. The 
smokers of the last century prided 
themselves on the fanciful shapes 
of their tobacco-stoppers. Fairholt 
gives a list of some of them; among 
them, a bear's tooth tipped with sil- 
ver, Dr. Henry Sacheverel in full 
canonicals carved in ivory, a boot, a 
horse's hind leg. Punch, a milkmaid, 
a countryman with a flail, a soldier 
in armor, a bust of Charles I., a bust 
of Cromwell; p. 202, 11. 6, 7. The 
tobacco of this period was commonly 
prepared in the form of a twisted 
rope and made up in rolls; p. 210, 
1.10. 

Took off the dress he was In, took off 
the livery he was in, it being a badge 
of service; p. 88.1. 10. See Stkippkd, 



and note the distinction in signifi- 
cance between the two terms. 

Tories and Whigs; Introduction, Sec- 
tions 6. 10,20,21. 

Travel; Introduction, Section 15. 

Triumvirate; p. 72, 1. 7. See Shaks- 
pere's Julius Caesar, iv. 1. 

Trunk-maker; Introduction, Section 8- 

Tnlip-root; in Holland in the seven 
teenth century the price of tulips rose 
above that of most of the precious 
metals. Men gambled in them as 
men novv gamble in stocks. Even 
in Will Wimble's day, though the 
"bubble had burst", tulips still re- 
tained a factitious value; p. 90, 1. 23. 

Tully, the eighteenth century name 
for Marcus TuUius Cicero, now known 
as Cicero; p. 57, 1. 12. 

Turn at Will's, take a; play a game 
or so of cards there; p. 57, 1. 26. 

Turtle [dove] ; p. 77, 1. 17. 

Two first; modern usage now requires 
"first two"; p. 104,1. 10. 

Uncapable; modern usage requires 

"incapable"; p. 92. 1. 26. 
Upon, about; p. 103. 1. 4. 

Vapors, a nervous disease, character- 
ized by hallucinations and depres- 
sion of spirits; Introduction, Section 
5. 

Vermin, a term once applied to ob- 
noxious animals even of consider- 
able size, but now more limited in its 
scope; p. 129, 1. 10. 

Victor; Introduction, Section 32. 

Visitant, visitor (now seldom used 
except to designate supernatural 
visitors); p. 77, 1. 5. 

Vulgar (from the Latin vulgus, people), 
the rank and file of people, the com- 
mon people; p. 121, 1. 21. 

Wall; Introduction, Section 2. 
Warm, excited with drink; p. 118, 1. 1?. 
War, The; Introduction, Sections 21 
25.30. 



248 



GLOSSARY 



Warwick, liady; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 25. 

Was; you was; this form was long 
used by some people in the desire to 
make language more logical ; p. 229, 
1. 7. If it ivas; careful usage requires 
" were" here; p. 138, 1. 21. 

Watchmen; Introduction, Section 3. 

Watermen; the river Thames was a 
favorite method of getting to distant 
parts of the city,— this, notwithstand- 
ing the ribaldry and blasphemy for 
which the watermen along the route 
were notorious; p. 224, 1. 1. 

Way; see Right we had, etc. 

Weeds, garments, as in the phrase 
" widow's weeds"; p. 136. 1. 29. 

Westminster; the city of Westmin- 
ster included the part of London in 
the vicinity of Westminster Abbey. 
As Westminster Abbey was once a 
cathedral or head church of a diocese, 
the municipality in which it was 
situated became, according to Eng- 
lish law, a city: p. 186. 1. 10. 

Westminster Abbey, p. 2o8. 1.2: here 
the most celebrated of the English 
dead are buried together with others 
whose fame was but ephemeral. 
Sir Cloudesley Sliovel, p. 210, 1. 16, 
an English admiral who took part 
in the victory of La Hogue, was ship- 
wrecked and drowned off the Scilly 
Islands in 1707. " Sir Cloudesley 
Shovel's Monument has very often 
given me great Offence: Instead of 
the brave rough English admiral, 
which was the distinguishing charac- 
ter of that plain, gallant Man, he is 
represented on his Tomb by the 
Figure of a Beau, dressed in a long 
Periwig, and reposing himself upon 
\ - ^vet Cushions under a Canopy of 
State."— .9pectotor,No. 26. Dr. Busby, 
p. 210. 1. 18, for fifty-five years head- 
master of Westminster School; re- 
puted to have whipped more great 
men than any other teacher of Eng- 



land, nevertheless he was loved and 
venerated by his pupils. Statesman 
Cecil upon his knees, p. 210. 1. 29, 
William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, kneel- ■ 
ing at the base of his wife's tomb, 
That martyr to good housewifery, I 
p. 211, 1. 1, "one of the hundred lies 
which the attendant is said to have;! 
told Goldsmith's Citizen of the 
World without blushing". Two) 
coronation cliairs, p. 211, 1. 8; the a 
more recent of these two chairs wass 
placed in the Abbey for the corona- 
tion of Marj' as joint sovereign with 
her husband, William III. The 
stone "under", or properly speaking, 
set into the other, was called Jacob's 
pillar because tradi.ion asserted t 
th-it it was on this stone that Jacob i 
had rested his head in the wilderness 
when he saw " the angels of God 
ascending and descending". Thence, 
so Scotch legends ran, it had gone to 
Spain, thence to Ireland and thence to 
Scotland. As an actual f.ict, it was 
a piece of common rough Scotch i 
sandstone, set into the chair in which i 
the kings of Scotland were crowned; ; 
it was seized by Edward I. of England 1 
in his conquest of Scotland and con- 
veyed to the Abbey. Whoever sat in 
this chair must have had to pay a 
special fee or "tip" to the guide. 
Edward III. (p. 211, 1. 24) and 
his son, the Black Prince, were 
the heroes of Crecy. The present ; 
motto of the successive Princes of ' 
Wales, Ich dien, commemorates this •■■ 
victory. The sword referred to is i 
seven feet long and weighs eighteen i 
pounds. Touched for the evil (or 
scrofula), p. 212 1. 1, on the supposition 
that a king's touch would effect a mi- 
raculous cure. This superstition was 
very prevalent at this time. Without 
an head, p. 212, 11. 5,6; Henry V. ; the 
head of solid silver was stolen, the 
rest of the figure, which waj plated, , 



GLOSSARY 



249 



was stripped of its metal. Interpre- 
ter, p. 212, 1. 23; the guide. 

Whisperer, tale-bearer, Informer; p. 
142, 1. 10. 

Whitepot, a dish made of cream, su- 
„ rice, currants, cinnamon, etc.; 
p. 96, 1. 16. 

White witch; see Moll White. 

Who have; this should properly be 
"which has"; p 68,1.9. The grammar 
throughout this issue of the Spectator 
is defective in the matter of pronouns. 
Any intelligent reader can correct it, 
however. 

Widow Trueby's water; "one of the 
innumerable strong waters drunk, it 
is said (perhaps libellously) chiefly by 
the fair sex as an exhilarant, the ex- 
cuse being the colic and the vapors." 
— W. H. Wills. The base of most of 
these waters was brandy; p. 208, 1. 17. 

William the Conqueror's time, p. 50, 
1. 3; an amiable bit of vanity like the 
tracing of one's American ancestry 
back to the landing of the Mayflower. 
When the Conqueror had distributed 
the land of England among his aristo- 
cratic Norman followers, he had a 
census or survey taken, which, when 
completed in 1086, formed the first 
great English record to be published 
by the nation. 



Will's, Child's, St. James's, Gre- 
cian, Cocoa Tree, Jonathan's; 

London coflFee-houses; Introduction, 
Sections 11, 12. See also turn at Wilts. 

Wills, W. H., quoted; Introduction, 
Section 18, footnote. 

Wimble; there is an adjective "wim- 
ble" meaning active, nimble. What 
other proper names in these papers 
have been selected with a purpose? 
p. 89, 1. 3. 

Winked; Sir Roger is unwilling to 
think that any one closely related to 
him could ever engage in trade: p. 97, 
1.24. 

Wishes, hopes (note that the old 
idiom here is the more accurate); 
p. 187, 1. 2. 

Wit; look up this word in the diction- 
aries. It meant not quite the same 
thing to the eighteenth century that 
it means to the nineteenth; p. 56, 
1.28. 

With his service to him; a phrase of 
courtesy analogous to "with his com- 
pliments"; p. 89, 1.5. 

Woman; Sir Roger here recurs to the 
widow; p. 144, 1. 15. 

Woman of fashion ; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 5. 

Younger sons; Introduction, Sec- 
tion 14. 



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